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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432981">Unsolicited Wingfic</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wingfix/pseuds/Wingfix'>Wingfix</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Renaissance, Angel Sex, Angel Wings, Angelic Lore, Angels, Body Horror, Bureaucracy, Clothing Porn, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, Fantasy, Feathers &amp; Featherplay, Fluff, Guardian Angels, Heaven, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Nonbinary Character, Original Character(s), Other, Painting, Power Dynamics, Power Imbalance, Romance, Schmoop, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Transformation, Wing Grooming, Wing Kink, Wing Oil, Wingfic, Wings, nobody asked for this and here it is!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 06:40:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>44,888</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432981</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wingfix/pseuds/Wingfix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Varie, a court painter, attracts the attention of a winged prince. This liaison is forbidden, as Varie has no wings. Prince Illumis II transforms Varie into a socially-acceptable prospect, whether Varie wants to be winged or not.</p><p>All Varie meant to do was make their mark in the art world. Now feathers spring unwanted from their back, and the palace halls whisper dangerous secrets.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Character(s) &amp; Other(s), original nonbinary character - Relationship</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Guess the Love Interest</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a work of escapist fiction dealing with themes of non-realistic power abuse. I condemn sexual harassment IRL. Let's keep it here in a fluff fic on AO3, where it can be eroticized for fun!</p><p>Also, sure, you can point out that this is poorly-researched, faux-Italian Renaissance worldbuilding with nonsense names, but where's the challenge in that?</p>
    </blockquote><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie, a member of the painter's guild, secures a promotion in the palace behind their master's back. Archimedo doesn't like this but he's still supportive, like a good master. But this is a world where the winged rule de facto over the non-winged, and Varie doesn't fully understand how dangerous career advancement can be.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>An envelope bearing the Magister’s seal represented so much to Varie. A decade of powdering beetle shells, scampering up and down the guild hallways, and thousands upon thousands of careful deliberate brush strokes. A carefully-coordinated invitation to a duke to watch a mural in progress had sealed the letter within. The seal was indented very deeply into gold leaf wax, bearing a winged tower, three stories tall. This was the seal of the Magister of Culture, who outranked the painting guild master, Archimedo.</p><p>The letter was Varie’s to open and read, as was the missive within, but Archimedo needed to see it. Varie dressed their best. Even though they’d had to pull some strings behind Archimedo’s back, they still respected him. Varie had their hair cut and braided into a blonde coif that curled around their ears. They  wore their only nice suit, the tawny one with an embroidered collar. It was meant to be worn at salons, although Varie rarely made it to them. The painting guild kept up friendly relations with the tailoring guild in the same palace, which was the only way Varie afforded to have their clothing fitted to their twiggy body.</p><p>Varie pattered up the marble hallway. The floor was checkerboard brown, ivory, brown under their tapping feet. Groin vaults adorned with vines and birds stretched into a sky that looked real enough, but was nothing more than a guild painting. Child’s play, in Varie’s estimation: They’d been replicating the sky since they were ten years old!</p><p>Archimedo’s office lay behind a door that was always half-crooked open. Varie rapped their knuckles against the door, then held one hand in the small of their back. They held their envelope in front. </p><p>The door opened. Archimedo’s face loomed over Varie’s head. He was taller and broader than them, fatter too, with a hairstyle primarily composed of frizzy beard. His hazel eyes traveled to the envelope in Varie’s hand. He instantly recognized the Magister’s seal, and assumed correctly the amount of work Varie had put into securing it.</p><p>“So,” Archimedo said, and in that moment the sleep bags under his eyes seemed especially pronounced, “You’ve gone and done what I told you not to do.”</p><p>“I’m ready for this, Master,” said Varie.</p><p>Archimedo sighed and retreated back into his office. “It isn’t possible to be ready. Not for this. Regardless, I have letters to address on your behalf. This conversation isn’t over, but it will not be continued tonight.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Varie flopped on their bunk in the painting guild’s dormitory. Finally. This would be the last time they looked at the graffiti-covered bricks and endured the hay mattress while guildmates snored. The candlelight flickered in its sconce. Varie closed their eyes and slept, fully-clothed. They had to be ready at first light in the morning. A passing night maid blew out the candle for them. Varie expected to dream of bedding stuffed with down, but instead their dreams centered on feathers and stardust gently falling from the sky.<p>That morning, Varie skipped up a spiral staircase and alighted a balcony overlooking the city of Plumas. There, Varie beheld Archimedo brooding over the skyline. He clutched a cape about himself in the early morning chill. Varie approached and looked out at the landscape for themself, resting elbows on the rail.</p><p>“No one can be ready for this, Varie,” Archimedo repeated from the night before. His eyes scanned the intertwining alleyways of Plumas city, where domestic rocs landed on buildings to interact with human owners, and towers spiked into the distant skyline. Beyond even that, there was a steep cliff and a drop thousands of feet to the ocean — Plumas existed near the cusp of the floating continent itself. The cityfolk tossed their garbage over it, thinking nothing of the countries beneath.</p><p>“Archimedo, you know I’m better than everyone you’ve been giving the portraitures,” said Varie.</p><p>“Yes. You are my most skilled student,” said Archimedo.</p><p>“Then why? Why’m I stuck on the murals team?” said Varie.</p><p>“You’re on mural <i>portraiture</i>,” Archimedo reminded them. “That should be honor enough.”</p><p>“It’s mural <i>pay</i>,” said Varie.</p><p>“If you demonstrated financial need, I could have raised your stipend,” said Archimedo. “There was no reason to engineer this behind my back.”</p><p>“What can I say? I want what I’m worth,” said Varie. “And named credit.”</p><p>Archimedo paused, considering the townsfolk and their mundane lives below. Procuring food from the markets, maybe enjoying the tunes of a busker, and for a special night out seeing what the local playwright was up to. There were public fountains everywhere and fresh water plumbed through the city. All this, under the protection of the Plumas Guard and their war rocs, sworn to the Avian Empress.</p><p>“This is more than about money, skill and reputation,” said Archimedo. “No tutor can accurately convey exactly how the Avias Court operates.”</p><p>“How am I supposed to learn how the Court works if I’m not even allowed to participate?!” barked Varie. “You’re always assigning me hours during the salons. I never get to go!”</p><p>“The ability to juggle subtle political stressors is, and I must be quite sharp with you, an ability you <i>innately</i> lack, and one I doubt you can pick up,” Archimedo said, and he sagged in a way that Varie knew meant he was nursing some hurt pride. “That said, Varie, my dear student…I would still like to help you, if you would allow me.”</p><p>“Thank you, Master,” said Varie, bowing. “That’s all I could ever want, is your help. I’d be miserable if I left you behind.”</p><p>“You are going to be miserable anyway,” Archimedo assured them.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>The Magister of Culture occupied a great, grim office devoid of sculpture and painting. Paperwork lined it instead, in neat stacks. Artists of every stripe requested permits for this and that: Public murals, sculpted fountains, requests to bump the rival thespian group out of a popular theater. <i>Et cetera.</i><p>On paper, the Magister of Culture oversaw every cultural event that went on in Plumas. In practice, he was hopelessly tied to the interior of the Avian Palace, a project that forever expanded alongside the ever-building architecture. He procured documentation, a quill, and a jar of ink for Varie and Archimedo to glance over. He wore clothes of deep gray, which complemented his long black braid of hair. Halfmoon glasses perched under slate eyes.</p><p>Varie could hardly believe that this, the Magister of Culture himself, had even seen a play, listened to a melody, or even experienced a bright color. The rumor that addressing this man was like talking to a big, puzzling raven was true, then.</p><p>“We thank this protégé for presenting a solution to the portraiture bottleneck, Master Archimedo,” said the Magister of Culture. </p><p>Varie felt the vellum hit their hands. For some reason, they didn’t register that they were supposed to do something.</p><p>“Please redirect your attention to the document,” said the Magister. His gloved finger tapped the top of the document form.</p><p>Varie pressed down the quill as told. Varie realized they’d been gaping, openly, at the size of the Magister’s wings.</p><p>Sure, a noble or two would address the general populace of Plumas from a distance, showing off a wingspan that almost looked like a theater prop. Up close for the first time, Varie could see that each feather alone was wide enough to block out their palms. The limbs were very much real and solidly connected to the Magister’s body through holes in the back of his coat. They were covered in black, iridescent feathers, the same color as his hair. Over his head floated an onyx halo.</p><p>What had Archimedo said about Varie’s capability for navigating delicate political situations, again? Varien focused on detailing their name, city of birth, and general life history, all with decent calligraphy. Letters weren’t their favorite thing to create with a pen. Varie expected an admonishment for a couple of scratchy letter bowls. The Magister’s face registered no emotion as he read Varie’s writing. </p><p>“Hm. Wiloma,” said the Magister.</p><p>“A surprising amount of my students hail from Wiloma,” said Archimedo. “Varien arrived at our doorstep with impressive plein air chops. It must be the mountains and fresh air that does it.”</p><p>“It’s the site of a deerpox outbreak,” said the Magister. </p><p>“Er…It is?” said Archimedo.</p><p>“Yes,” said the Magister, and he slid Varie’s documentation into a shelf. His back was to the both of them. “The pact is sealed. Exit.”</p><p>Varie could have stared at those wings forever, the way they shimmered.</p><p>Archimedo bowed wordlessly. He grabbed Varie’s arm and steered them out of the office into the Magister’s mezzanine. Sculpted hippocampi trumpted water in a fountain there.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Usually, for dinner, Varie grabbed a day-old baguette straight from the kitchen. They carried it in their mouth over to their painting project for the evening.<p>That night, Varie ate dinner with Archimedo at the top of a tower: Fresh onion soup, roast quail. The meat split from the bone juicily. Varie enjoyed the stained glass windows that cast rainbow light over the food. They only mingled with the glass crafting guild in passing, so it was nice to see a window as a piece of art, rather than a utilitarian portal. Between the both of them, Varie and Archimedo split a bottle of wine.</p><p>This was after a day spent browsing rooms normally off-limits. They’d browsed through a hallway of lifelike marble statues.</p><p>After dinner, Archimedo led Varie through a garden they had never seen before, one with twisting marble pathways and sculpted hedges. Varie stretched with their arms over their head and counted green moths. They spotted a raven, which cocked its head at them and then flew overhead onto a weathervane.</p><p>“The pact is sealed,” said Varie, deepening their voice to mock the Magister’s tone. “Am I gonna be talking to that guy every day? What a wet blanket.”</p><p>“No, you still report to me, for the time being,” said Archimedo, “Someday, perhaps, you will deal with the Magister directly, at which point the only protection I can offer is prayer.”</p><p>“So, more boring projects,” said Varie.</p><p>“Not boring; a matter of life and death,” said Archimedo, “Sometimes a person wants <i>their</i> truth about how they look, not <i>the</i> truth. How well do you think you can manage that? Do you understand what the winged can do to you if you offend?”</p><p>“Whatever. I’ll just tell them they’re wrong,” said Varie.</p><p>“You cannot do that!”</p><p>“I’ll use logic to back up my point,” Varie insisted. The winged elite listened to reason, otherwise they wouldn’t be elite. Right?</p><p>“Then I’d best show up to the guillotine early. I wouldn’t want to miss your debut,” replied Archimedo.</p><p>The two of them sat on a bench in front of a pond. Lilypads covered its surface. The blooms were still buds. Varie could see bugs skiing and the curve of fish tails in the shadows. Marble columns poked out of the lake. Varie’s gaze trailed up the fronds of a weeping willow, which leaned over a tiny waterfall. The water chattered, but Varie could swear it was speaking, saying something…</p><p>“We’d best be going,” said Archimedo abruptly.</p><p>“Why?” said Varie.</p><p>“Please, Varie, we must go,” said Archimedo.</p><p>The conversation floated closer and closer. Archimedo couldn’t tell from which direction it came.</p><p>“Quick, through the pond,” he said, and shoved Varie in.</p><p>“Archimedooo,” whined Varie. They clutched their doublet, with its embroideries and silky fabric. A blob of algae floated up from the earthy recesses of the pond. Mud sucked at their shoes and minnows fled before them.</p><p>“Please, go! No splashing!” hissed Archimedo, lifting his trousers and wincing into the pond after them.</p><p>“I thought we were allowed to be here,” Varie whispered, from their hiding place under the draping branches of the willow tree. The waterfall trickled against Varie’s leg. They suffered through every moment of pond gunk seeping into their socks and pants.</p><p>“Shh, for God’s sake, shh!” said Archimedo.</p><p>The intensity of Archimedo’s caution made froze Varie’s curiosity. Normally, they’d have taken it as an invitation to further their argument. And normally…There wouldn’t be a small parade of people in glittering garments strolling past the pond. Each was crowned with a halo, and each bore a pair of wings that poked through the cloth of their robes.</p><p>Among the winged, Varie immediately picked out one who had to be their leader: They were taller than the rest, wrapped completely head-to-toe in trinkets and gold silks, and their halo was a glowing crown. Oddest of all, this winged person concealed their face behind a mask in the shape of an owl’s face. Varie’s heart went as cold as the pondwater when it seemed like the owl’s face looked their way.</p><p>Just as easily, the owl-faced man turned back to his compatriots, and the party as a whole shuffled into the other parts of the garden.</p><p>“I thought we were allowed to be here,” said Varie, this time sincerely keeping their voice down. Hopefully the sound of the waterfall would keep them hidden.</p><p>“Yes, this is where the winged may deign to mingle with us,” said Archimedo, gulping. “You need to learn: They are powerful. They are bored. They only play games they will win. Especially that man, the one with the mask. He answers only to the Empress, and she does not consider complaints from the wingless.”</p><p>“Who was that?” Again, just like with the Magister of Culture, Varie felt charmed to see the flash of those feathers again. The owl-masked man’s four wings had shone as though leafed in gold.</p><p>“Prince Illumis II.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Oh, Baby!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>"Just paint a cherub," they said. </p>
<p>"It'll be easy," they said.</p>
<p>Well, nobody told Varie that the baby-like depiction of the cherubim was patently false!</p>
<p>(Body horror tag especially for this chapter)</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Varie hadn’t expected to crank themselves upright on a hay mattress in the morning, smelling of pond scum and—yes, there it was--- the all-to-familiar throb of a hangover in their brow. Oof. Mud slicked all over their nice pants. At least Varie slept in as late as they pleased, awakening only to servants stripping the bedding nearby and whispering to keep it down.</p>
<p>Clad in the smock bearing the fewest paint and plaster spatters, Varie paced up the hallway. Sunlight beamed in through the archways. A fresh baguette perched in their mouth. The kitchen staff had yelled at Varie like every other day they spotted the painter dipping in and stealing their work. Varie ripped off some of the crust with their teeth. Varie peered through a carved doorway at a chapel being primed. This was the guild’s latest project, one that Archimedo had actually expected Varie to help out painting before he got the news of their promotion.</p>
<p>Varie had actually been looking forward to painting cherubs. There was something soothing about fixing plump little baby musculature to their pillowy bodies, their serene faces. As for the feathers of tiny wings poking out of their soft fatty backs, Varie could take or leave them. Publicly, Varie mocked cherubim as being goopy-eyed, cutesy, cliché — perhaps they mocked the angelic motif too hard at times.</p>
<p>Archimedo directed the composition inside of the chapel. A team of artists held drawings on vellum at the bottom of one of the grand archways to the left of the pulpit. They poked holes into the wet plaster and smeared charcoal into it as guidelines for the figures in the new fresco. If they were interrupted, the plaster might dry before they could paint that part of the fresco. That had been Varie’s task all of not even two days before, one they had taken quite seriously. The remaining muralists carried the project without Varie just fine. </p>
<p>In fact, Varie recognized one of their former peers as taking on the task of cherubic baby flesh. That painter was doing a great job, getting all the proportions and angel-angles correct. It was as if Varie’s fresco work had never mattered.</p>
<p>Archimedo turned away from Varie’s former team. He patted Varie’s arms and led them away from the fresco. </p>
<p>“Varie, you’ll be very happy to hear, we’ve been invited to a salon together,” said Archimedo.</p>
<p>“Oh yes, finally!” said Varie, before their hopes fell out of the sky like a shot dove. They remembered how the pond scum cracked along the hem of their pants. “I have nothing to wear.”</p>
<p>“Ah, yes, we can’t have you going in that,” said Archimedo, who gestured at Varie’s smock. “We can’t even have you in it while you’re painting. Come!”</p>
<p>Archimedo ushered Varie down the hallway with the checkerboard marble and the skies painted overhead. As a muralist, Varie only ever hung out in front of Archimedo’s doorway and peered in to see whatever they could. When Varie reflexively did this, Archimedo’s hand landed square on their back and they stumbled fully into his office. </p>
<p>The walls had been painted red but obviously not recently, for chips were in the windowsills and the floral figures emblazoned upon the walls were choked out by residual smoke from the fireplace. Archimedo brushed a curtain open to take advantage of the late summer. Dust motes flirted with each other in the light. Varie forgot all of their previous instincts regarding respecting the guild master’s space when they spotted a globe of the known world next to his desk.</p>
<p>The paint on the globe had been protected by a thin, cracked layer of varnish, and the dust yielded easily to Varie’s palm. Varie was most charmed by the replica of the floating continent which floated over the faux waters of the Oanorian Sea, enchanted to suspend itself over the globe in mimicry of the real thing.</p>
<p>Archimedo flopped an outfit onto Varie from a stately oak wardrobe. “What about this one?”</p>
<p>Varie held it up. The sleeves were too long. “No way; this is a dress, not a robe.”</p>
<p> “And this?” said Archimedo, tossing Varie a different option.</p>
<p>They turned the tunic about and found slashed, puffed sleeves. “Whoof, I think this went out of style what, three years ago?”</p>
<p>Archimedo groaned, and the pile of clothing grew at the center of an already-cluttered office. Eventually Varie settled on a burgundy number with a turtleneck and concealing sleeves, with tight pants and a small half-cape snatched from a different coat. With an upturn of the collar and a pair of gloves to finish, Varie put the ‘prude’ in ‘prudent’. Granted this was more of a fall-ish thing to wear, but sometimes salons headed outdoors and the nights bore hints and whispers of autumn.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>At first, Varie loved the salon. A room full of cushions, pillows, strung-up silks, and food themed for a saturnalia presented by attractive servants in diaphanous silks. Varie went easy on the aperitifs but found much to enjoy about the snacks, which had been foraged from the palace woodlands. They recognized several prominent portraiture artists and managed to have short conversations with each without making a total fool of themselves.<p>Though Archimedo hovered near Varie like a hawk, he was inevitably pulled away by one of his former pupils. </p>
<p>“Heard from Master Archimedo himself you’re taking on Consort Poyel,” said Enzo of Bellecia, giving Varie a pantomime toast, for he’d also abstained from the drinks.</p>
<p>“I am?” said Varie, and they inwardly checked themselves. Confidence. Confidence was the key. “Ah yes, I am,” they repeated, hoping Enzo hadn’t noticed. He was all masculine angles and Varie really liked the groom of his facial hair.</p>
<p>“He’s here, you know,” said Enzo, “Consort Poyel. Rather high-ranking, of the Cherubim. One of the Empress’s favorites.”</p>
<p>Enzo flicked a finger towards a doorway flanked with rolls upon rolls of satin. Laughter and music poured out of it.</p>
<p>Enzo leaned in to whisper in Varie’s ear, “I’m sure Master Archimedo wouldn’t mind if you introduced yourself early. It’s only polite.”</p>
<p>“Of course,” said Varie, and, per usual, it did not cross their mind that Enzo had anything less than the best intentions for furthering their career.</p>
<p>Enzo smirked after them.</p>
<p>Varie tried to reconcile the notion of a cherub being a consort. Who took a baby into that sort of position? Still, the subject matter was in Varie’s wheelhouse. Maybe it was a godly magic baby with wings. Maybe consortial matters were different for the winged. </p>
<p>The first thing Varie noticed at the end of the hallway was an abundance of feathers. The second thing they saw were three women with the barest wisps of clothing, each massaging a different animal’s head poking out of the feathers. Whatever inhabited this room, it was no baby.</p>
<p>The being within the room chortled and stood up to its full height. All those feathers…they were enormous wings, kinked at horrible angles to fit inside of a room at human proportion. As Varie’s brain struggled to make sense of the cherubic form righting itself in front of them, they gaped.</p>
<p>Consort Poyel bore six wings althogether, two crossing in front of his human body to hide its nakedness, two framed around his head and golden halo, and two behind, each backing a bull’s head and an ape’s head, respectively. A vulture’s head poked out from somewhere in back. There was no telling how any of Poyel’s limbs attached to anything else.</p>
<p>A shock of adrenaline sparked Varie into running back up the hallway from whence they came, and they ran into a servant at the end. Drinks flew everywhere, all over the other guests.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Ecstasy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie doesn't want to take this client after all! Well, that's too bad. Archimedo smooths things out with the Magister of Culture and Varie gets tossed into painting once more.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I may append some stuff from this chapter back into chapter 2. Thanks for reading my self-indulgent mess. Also don't believe for a second that Illumis is what he appears to be. :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Varie paced up and down the hallway while Archimedo and the Magister of Culture debated behind a doorway. Their meeting ended when Archimedo exited the room.</p><p>“It’s going to be all right. I settled everything with the Magister, but you’re not coming to any more salons for awhile,” said Archimedo, walking swiftly away from Varie. “Now let’s get you to work.”</p><p>“Please, don’t make me take this client,” Varie pleaded after Archimedo. He was on his daily stroll down the hallway after checking in with the chapel fresco team. Archimedo waved his hand.</p><p>“This is what you wanted,” said Archimedo. “Career progression.”</p><p>“Archimedo, how am I supposed to paint a cherub?” said Varie.</p><p>The night before, after the incident with Consort Poyel, Varie thought they’d been crying. A few red spatters on the floor and Varie shakily wiped their face. Those weren’t tears they cried. They were dribbles of blood leaking out of their tearducts.</p><p>How, indeed, did someone paint something so full of light and terror that it caused one’s eyes to bleed?</p><p>Archimedo sighed. He stepped into his office with Varie trailing behind. Varie clutched their own elbows with their hands, unsure of themself. They wore their painting smock and had their easel and paints strapped across their back. Archimedo rustled around in his desk until he pulled out something that Varie, at first, mistook for a sphere. When Varie saw their own eye reflected in it, tear ducts and bottom lids lined in red from the previous night’s bloody sobbing, they realized it was a small, round mirror.</p><p>“Whatever you do,” said Archimedo, “Poyel must not figure out it’s about your eyes bleeding. Say it’s for seeing extra details. The cherubim are very, very sensitive about being perceived poorly by humans.”</p><p>“Sure,” said Varie, pocketing the mirror.</p><p>Archimedo clasped Varie on the shoulder. “You’ll learn how to deal with the Ecstasy in time.”“The ‘Ecstasy’?” Varie asked.</p><p>“Yes…the ah, side effects of looking directly at the winged,” said Archimedo. “The ones who don’t know how to mask it yet, or cannot.” “So I’ll be fine if I can just…get used to bleeding from my eyes?” said Varie.</p><p>“Halfway. The Ecstasy isn’t what kills you. The politics do that,” said Archimedo. He rubbed one of many headaches that Varie caused for him.</p><p>Varie and Archimedo climbed up the staircase into the vast garden. Varie had a scroll case full of canvas about their shoulders, a folded-up easel strapped to their back, paints in a waist pouch, brushes in a pocket. The mirror felt cold in their hand. The path wound about and around marble statues until they approached a great white temple in the middle of a lake. A bridge rose out of the water to meet their footsteps. Giant lilypads peeled away from the bridge.</p><p>The shadow of the eave over the temple entrance descended on Varie’s shoulders coolly. Archimedo held back in the sun behind them. Varie faced a gilded door. The fleurs sculpted into the door twisted and writhed as if alive, the pulled it open, revealing a long marble hallway within.</p><p>“Good luck,” said Archimedo.</p><p>Varie understood they were to enter the temple, alone. They felt the last heat of the sun dissipate as they stepped through the threshold. The fluers twisted and twined about each other, weaving the doorway shut. The air inside the temple was icy, but not damp. It was like how Varie imagined being inside of a cloud might be like. The pillars of the temple reached into a sunless sky, so high Varie couldn’t see their headstones. The light that shone from this sky was cold, too. It was like Varie had stepped into early spring from the summer outdoors. They expected to hear the hum of music, but it was silent.</p><p>Varie walked down the long hallway. At least it was easy to find their way; there weren’t any other doors. Just one path straight through, to where a cloud (an actual cloud!) rested on a throne of marble, undulating by some hidden breeze. Varie approached it. The throne was very tall, with steps leading up, but they stayed at the base of the throne.</p><p>Seated upon the cloud was someone who didn’t look like Poyel at all, at least not at first glance. They had human proportions, for starters, and had wrapped themselves in a shawl the color of blood. Their face turned to regard Varie from the throne. It was owl-shaped. Familiar. A mask.</p><p>Varie froze. That was Prince Illumis II.</p><p>“Ah,” said the Prince, “You’re that fool from the pond.”</p><p>Varie swallowed. Their throat felt dry. They averted their eyes. Even though the Prince above wore a mask, it felt like the owl’s gaze pierced through them.</p><p>“Well,” said the Prince. To Varie’s horror, his voice stepped towards them, one marble tap at a time. Varie kept their eyes averted. “Did you have fun?”</p><p>“I…I…Sorry, I didn’t mean to, your highness,” said Varie. That owl’s mask had looked at them — through them — before.</p><p>“I asked if you had fun,” said the Prince, “Earthbound you might be, but living in a pond? That hardly seems human. Usually that only happens after ‘fun’.”</p><p>“Yes?” said Varie.</p><p>“You can look at me,” said the Prince, “Fear not. I manage my Ecstasy better than my father does.”</p><p>“Your father.“ Oh. Oh no. Poyel was the father of the Prince? Varie looked at him as requested, and though it caused their heart to flipflop strangely, no blood spilled from their tearducts, at least.</p><p>“Yes, he’s always wanted a portrait of me,” said the Prince, and he draped himself over a bench. The shawl shuffled about his form as he moved, hinting at sculpted flesh underneath. However, the Prince was not human, and Varie watched his wings unfurl, one, two, three, four, as they were freed from the cloth, but each was veiled with its own silks. Even though there wasn’t any visible sun in the sky, light gleamed from them.</p><p>Varie’s mind tumbled through their own thoughts. So Poyel was their client, technically, just not their subject. Okay. Varie could deal with this, hopefully.</p><p>“Do you think this is a good pose?” the Prince asked.</p><p>Even though Varie’s heart sung and they smelled pearls, there was something oddly…comforting about Prince Illumis II. The way he leaned on his elbow and munched an apple made him seem, well, not quite human, but very close. Varie swung the scrollcase from about their shoulders and set up their easel.</p><p>“For a portrait? Usually those are done sitting,” said Varie, momentarily aware of the ridiculousness of mouthing off to the Prince, of all people, but he laughed, and Varie could feel themself glow in the presence of that sound.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The Difficulties of Painting Entities that Cause Your Eyes to Bleed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie wriggles into another ill-advised salon, but this time there are no clients to upset. Just other painters. Like Varie! They watch someone reject an angelic invitation of some sort.</p><p>Time is running out for Varie, though. If they can't figure out how to paint Illumis, both Archimedo and the Magister of Culture are going to come down on Varie like a hawk's talons.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter's prospective title was "Eventually this story may turn into porn but that's only if I don't get distracted by worldbuilding first"</p><p>I'm also really grateful for those who keep up with my more slice-of-lifey writing structure and random forays into the setting. Story structure is not my strong suit, especially when I'm updating serially.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>In time, Varie was permitted to go to another artist’s salon, although Archimedo had to vet it for angels first (there were none at this salon, as far as he could tell). This one took place out in the open, in a field, with forest along the horizon. Orange flowers bloomed under Varie’s feet. They sat under a tent to escape the bright sun, with the other salon-goers. A rug had been spread over the flowers and grass. Pillows completed the ensemble, as well as a kneeling table stocked with candied fruits, nuts, fresh croissants, and a multitude of tiny jams in various colors, mimicking a painter’s supplies. </p><p>Varie helped themself to a cherry that cracked between their teeth. Cordial spilled into their mouth with the rich tang of alcohol. Varie wrapped their arms around their knees. They’d acquiesced to a silk gown today, because it was hot out and sometimes, well, Varie felt more feminine. They settled back into a pillow and continued a conversation with a portraiture artist who’d caught their eye: Lavinia of Templarus, known for her masterful portraits of Magister Nuriel, Watcher Jomjael, and an in-progress portrait of an angel she refused to name.</p><p>“Ah, yes, I remember when I first started out!” Lavinia said, wafting her face with a fan. Her hair was graying but she wore a smirk that Varie rather enjoyed. The rest of her face lay under a silver visor. “I could barely perceive the esh I was supposed to paint. Even the mirror thing didn’t work.”“What did you do?” Varie asked.</p><p>Ice sculpted into floral shapes clinked against each other in the fruit-infused water. Lavinia motioned to it. Varie poured her some water. She sipped it, gazing out across the orange and green fields.</p><p>“I kept at it,” she said, “And at it, and at it, until it no longer mattered whether I could see.”</p><p>She lifted her visor. Varie yelped in surprise. She had no eyes.</p><p>“Ah, um, that’s—I’ll ah, I will keep that in mind,” said Varie, following it up with some sort of absurd excuse to go elsewhere. It wasn’t as if Lavinia had lost her eyes altogether, through injury or disease, it was — some sort of blank space, that caused Varie to glance over her face. Eyes, anulled.</p><p>Truth be told, Varie hadn’t been making great progress on Prince Illumis’s portrait. The two had spent hours suggesting things to each other, trying things out, and, in general, failing to reveal any of Illumis’s body without leaving Varie a weeping mess. Varie couldn’t even perceive one of Illumis’s nipples without babbling about his heavenly beauty. And so, the canvas remained blank but for a few half-hearted gestural drawings. </p><p>This was in light of Varie wobbling home after every session, feeling great joy that did not belong to them, a wild lightness partitioned to their heart by Illumis’s will. Archimedo was bound to catch on. Hell the Magister of Culture was probably going to have a thing or two to say about it. Still, Varie’s dreams were filled with feathers, and an owl’s face as the sun.</p><p>Varie joined a gathering circle of painters around a brazier. One of the painters, dressed in a ruffled suit and a half-cape with an ivory clasp, stood up to address the gathering crowd. From their curled moustache, Varie wagered this had to be Cosimo of Brueton, known for their landscapes and ability to say ‘no’ to things. Cosimo held a letter in their hand, one constructed with silver paper with a seal of white wax.</p><p>“Ahh, Cosimo, are you going to take it?”Cosimo smirked at the letter. Their reputation was more about being arbitrary than accepting gifts gracefully. They were not only known for starting arguments with winged clients, they were also known to <i>survive</i> said arguments.</p><p>Varie knew exactly what that letter was, although it wasn’t the sort of thing a Magister would stamp. The mark, especially, betrayed its true nature. Cosimo had been invited to be fledged. A mysterious process, one that Varie did not know much about. Those who were fledged were never seen again, but there were rumors that they remained somewhere in the Empress’s palace.</p><p>It wasn’t a condemnation. It was an honor to be invited. But, generally, when one had a family, or a lover, or children, or any sort of unfinished business, they rejected the invitation, and often that marked the end of their career.</p><p>“No,” said Cosimo, smiling, and they tossed their letter onto the brazier. The fire tore into it like any other paper. The party burst into laughter and organized a toast to Cosimo.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. If You Have to Ask You'll Never Know</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Illumis is even more annoying and disagreeable when his personal invitations get rejected. What Cosimo has done greases the wheels for Varie's fate. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Varie and Archimedo fret over Varie's lack of progress painting.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>For the life of them, it was as if Varie had forgotten how to paint. They dawdled over the chalk layer on the wooden plank with their sketching brush. Every line felt wrong. Varie could not control the sweep of their own arm when composing these horrible, wobbly lines. </p>
<p>On top of that, broad sadness — Illumis’s sadness — pressed on Varie. The magical sky overhead churned with gray clouds, grumbling about rain. Varie shivered, unable to clutch their shoulders for their hand grasped their brush. Illumis complained bitterly, as though Varie were not really there to paint him, but to listen to him.</p>
<p>“That Cosimo,” said Illumis. “How dare they reject my invitation. I wrote the letter myself! I fancied them.”</p>
<p>Varie shook their head, trying to clear their mind. However, Illumis’s perfume — roses and memories and fields of grain — crowded their senses, made them look only at his mask. It was made of luminous clay and the owl’s eyes had been painted on. The winged man within was likely not even looking back at Varie.</p>
<p>“You humans should be lining up in droves to be fledged,” Illumis said, “Imagine. Rejecting this honor. How could someone do otherwise.”</p>
<p>Varie’s hand twitched, and they had to smudge that line out and try again. The curve of Illumis’s jaw, even behind a mask, was so difficult to capture, Varie may as well have been fishing for lightning. The skies certainly promised many chances to do so.</p>
<p>“It’d be easier if we could still pick and choose among you,” sighed Illumis, resting back on the marble bench that he often chose to pose upon. Not that it really helped Varie to paint him, but the winged often favored rituals, patterns, repeated things. Comforting things. “You humans cry out, ‘give us a choice!’ And then you always choose the wrong thing. And that is why you crawl upon the earth, while our floating continent blots out your sun and kills your crops.”</p>
<p>Illumis spat.</p>
<p>Varie didn’t know whether they were being shrewd or fearful as they kept their mouth shut, for once in their life.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>So Varie was not in the best mood when they arrived at the end of the garden path. The cold of Illumis’s temple followed them through the late summer sun. Illumis’s words remained in Varie’s mind, as well — the way he took such personal offense, his clear disdain of the wingless, such as themself.<p>Varie met Archimedo in his office. Archimedo requested to see Varie’s progress.</p>
<p>Varie gripped their canvas tightly, and their face became flushed as they turned their canvas around. The whorl of unfinished lines faced Archimedo. </p>
<p>“Ah,” said Archimedo. He had carefully crafted this sort of reaction for this sort of situation. Varie hated it. They knew he was disappointed in spite of expertly masking it.</p>
<p>Varie blurted out, “Archimedo, do you know what fledging actually is?” because they writhed at the way Archimedo was controlling his disappointment. They wanted to change the subject if they could.</p>
<p>“No, no one does, unless they are winged themselves,” said Archimedo, and Varie wished he would quit staring at their very late, wobbly, and distracted work. “Varie, I have to show this to the Magister. You’re due to paint a seraph after this is completed, and this portrait should have been done within the month.”</p>
<p>“I…I know. I’m just. I can’t,” said Varie, closing their eyes. They daydreamed against their will about gold light lining the leaves of a forest. They often saw things when they closed their eyes after each sitting with the Prince.</p>
<p>“Varie,” said Archimedo, with a bit of a hiss, “I know. I know exactly what you’re going through.”</p>
<p>“I don’t want to lose my eyes, like Lavinia!” Varie blurted out again. “If I look at him too long without the mask or the silks…I can feel it happening!”</p>
<p>“Damn it Varie,” said Archimedo, “You must pull through. Lose your eyes, or lose your life.”</p>
<p>“Please, please, I can’t lose my eyes, I wouldn’t be able to paint,” said Varie.</p>
<p>Archimedo drew in a long breath that fluttered his wiry beard. He rubbed his nose. He tended to sweat while he made decisions.</p>
<p>“Come with me then, tomorrow” he said, wiping his hand of sweat before offering it to Varie. He helped them out of their seat.</p>
<p>“Where?” asked Varie.</p>
<p>“You are coming with me during my appointment with the Magister,” said Archimedo. “We are going to beg for his mercy.”</p>
<p>Outside of Archimedo's office window, the sun spilled light over the ocean. Waves churned the sunset into dark water. Stars brightened in the sky. Lights blinked on, one by one, in the coastal town that sat in the shadow of the floating empire.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Thank you for sticking with me! This is sort of a stress-relief project and so I'm not being that careful about all the events lining up in a clockwork fashion. There might be a lack of tension as a result, so I'll spackle it up with setting descriptions and clothing porn.</p>
<p>That said if there's any aspect of the characters or worldbuilding you'd like to see clarified in order to enjoy the story more, please let me know in a comment.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Out, Out, Damn Pond Scum!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Oof! Varie wasn't going to avoid an evaluation from the Magister or Archimedo forever. Are they really cut out for being a famous portraitist who sticks it to the Empress?</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This one's kind of an emotional whump dealing with professional failure, but I don't think it's like, WHUMP-whump territory. If you're sensitive to career peril, you can skip this chapter and read a tldr note at the end.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The pond scum stains just weren’t coming out. Varie had brushed the pants, soaked them, dashed them with a rock, and still, a greenish hue remained locked in the fabric. Sweat formed in their pores while they worked. They’d gotten up early just to clean their nicest outfit, and they were still going to be late meeting Archimedo. The bells of the clocktower ringing outside confirmed that yes, Archimedo was likely pacing outside of the guild dormitory right that instant, Varie-less.</p><p>“Huhgghghufff,” Varie exhaled. Some of the delicate embroidered flowers around the ankle had snapped from the force of their scrubbing. That hurt. It really, really hurt. Varie squished the water they could out of the pants. They flopped it around in the air, trying to forget that they’d ruined their favorite part of the clothing.</p><p>From the knees down, Varie’s pants were still dark with water when they left the dormitory. The walk through the guild cloisters didn’t dry them off nearly enough, either. Archimedo, normally, would have noticed, but the guild master strode along silently and avoided looking at Varie. The two barely exchanged a word as they ascended the winding staircase that led to the Magister’s mezzanine. Distantly, birdsong sounded like weeping.</p><p>The gold fountains had seemed so celebratory to Varie now seemed overly ostentatious. The carved creatures spouting water bore expressions of anguish. One of the mermaids was clearly howling out her water as her delicate finger pointed to the Magister of Culture’s door.</p><p>Previously Varie had not noticed the thorn motif in the door’s embellishments. Archimedo opened it for them. Though carved in bas relief, Varie shrunk away from the door’s surface as they walked inside under Archimedo’s arm. Varie could see Archimedo gulp.</p><p>Nothing had, technically, changed since their last visit. The Magister of Culture wore the exact same expression as before. He did not hide behind his half-moon glasses, but they did create the impression of a wall between himself and his two earthbound visitors. His wings pressed against his body like a well-tailored cloak. </p><p>Varie tried not to stare, although the Magister, unlike Prince Illumis, kept his Ecstasy well under control. The Magisters were Eshim, one and all, known for concealing themselves to move among the non-winged without disrupting their emotional states. That Varie could see his wings at all was a conscious choice on the Magister’s part, and when Varie craned their neck to catch more flickers of light along the feathers, it was their own conscious choice to do so. Most likely the Magister displayed his wings to assert the office’s pecking order. With Archimedo in his guild master coat and best posture, and the Magister looming at his black desk like a half-obsidian, half-ivory monolith, Varie knew exactly who was at the bottom of said order.</p><p>“And do you stand by this painter’s work, Archimedo,” said the Magister, monotonously. He did not even deign to touch the canvases spread before him on his desk. He had already judged them with but a glance out of the corner of his gray eye.</p><p>Varie felt themselves rushing back into their own body. Their heart beat into their ears and their pants clung to their legs and they could still smell that damned pond reeking from their ankles. </p><p>Archimedo bowed his head. “No, I do not, Magister, Sir.”</p><p>“Then responsibility falls to the painter. We will have a word with them.”</p><p>The door opened on its own to the sound of the fountains. Archimedo bowed repeatedly with his hands clasped together in prayer, leaving Varie.</p><p>Their heartbeat pulsed louder, louder. Blood rushed to Varie’s face. The door closed. Walls filled with documentation pressed in. Verification administered, judgement carried out, officiation stamped in wax, letters sealed and validated. A single neatly-maintained, lit brazier burned at the Magister’s side. Organization! A painter would never hear of it. Varie’s heart squirmed in their chest at the idea that their life could be changed in an instant, at a glance, by a winged man so far removed from their own way of life.</p><p>It just wasn’t fair.</p><p>“What is your intent, Varie of Wiloma?” said the Magister, and his eyes rested on Varie. They couldn’t look back, not directly. They tried not to look at their messed-up pants, either, for it wouldn’t do to draw that cold gaze to even more of Varie’s mistakes.</p><p>“I…Want to be a painter, Sir…Magister,” Varie fumbled.</p><p>He was still looking at them, a statue’s stare.</p><p>“A painter can paint anywhere,” said the Magister. </p><p>“But the best painters paint here,” said Varie, still finding that their glance slid away from that of the Magister’s.</p><p>“Great painters are birthed from guilds all over the world,” said the Magister.</p><p>“But, you don’t understand,” said Varie, “I need to be in this guild. It’s the only one that all other guilds respect, no matter what. I need to show Wiloma—I need to show the world—everyone— that I’m a great painter.”</p><p>Varie’s words faltered a bit when they looked at their own half-baked sketches displayed across the Magister’s desk.</p><p>“So if not for the joy of painting, it is the prestige,” said the Magister neutrally, and little did Varie know, but this was a trap. Varie exhaled in relief and nodded vociferously.</p><p>“Yes. All the best painters paint here,” said Varie, and a bit of foolishness followed when they realized they were repeating themselves like a trained parrot. “They train and train, and then they find the optimal company, and then they paint y-you, the winged, and then they are offered a fledging, and then they turn it down, and that is the best painter in the land.”</p><p>In Varie’s head that had sounded a lot better. They were referring to memories of other famous painters who had been offered fledging in the Empress’s court, only to turn it down and return to their homes. It was considered a heroic move, one that basically flipped the Empress off and cemented those painters as folk heroes. Varie was a people’s person, not a winged pawn.</p><p>“Hm,” said the Magister. “No. Painters are here because it is their dream to be fledged.”</p><p>Varie gaped.</p><p>“If being fledged is not your life’s ambition, we free you to find another guild.”</p><p>The Magister took Varie’s signed pact and dropped it into the brazier, where it melted into black wrinkles before leaping into the air as sparks. Varie watched the flames lap his very seal into liquid wax once more.</p><p>It was as if a string holding Varie back had suddenly snapped. They threw themselves forward on their knees. Tears flowed down Varie’s face. They gripped the side of the desk. They weren’t sure exactly what they were saying, but, this was their dream, they’d happily consider a fledging, please, they’d worked their whole life to paint here.</p><p>“Please,” Varie ended.</p><p>The Magister hadn’t even flinched. His office door was open, and Varie knew that was the sign to leave.</p><p>They dragged themselves upwards against what seemed to be an immense amount of gravity. Walking felt slow, muffled. As Varie approached the gushing fountain and gold light outdoors, the Magister had one last thing to say.</p><p>“It would not be offensive to pursue an upcoming vacancy in the fresco retouching team, as a matter of working for one’s keep, and learning from one’s betters.”</p><p>Varie blinked, then nodded, understanding that this was a compromise. Retouching. That was apprentice work. Apprentice pay. Varie had already been through that grinder on their way up. But it would be enough to cover rent and allow Varie to remain under Archimedo’s tutelage.</p><p> “Yes, I’ll, I’ll see if I can do that, Magister, Sir. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”</p><p>The moment the door closed behind Varie, they bolted. Having perfectly clean clothes wouldn't have helped them either way.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>TLDR for those sensitive to professional failure/career peril:</p><p>The Magister of Culture isn't pleased, at all, with Varie's work, but he stops from outright banishing them from the palace after Varie delivers an impassioned plea. Varie gets demoted to doing revision work fit for apprentices in the guild.</p><p>And a note to all the kudos and bookmark-ers: Every single bit of attention that you give me just enables more wingfic so thank you so much! This is really fun to write</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Rose Portal</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie's "on leave" from painting portraiture...as well as anything else that needs painting around the palace. They battle their own self-doubt on the way to the airship docks. There, an acquaintance turns out to be more of a friend than Varie expected.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Archimedo said, “Absolutely not. You’re on leave.”“What? Why?” demanded Varie. They were more surprised than angry, but Archimedo’s face did not return their smile.</p>
<p>“You’re on leave. Like I said. Go home, Varie,” said Archimedo, and though his hairy face failed to smile, his eyebrows did soften.  </p>
<p>“Archimedo, please,” said Varie, leaning against the door. Archimedo had not permitted her into his office since their meeting with the Magister. He blocked his own doorway, all hair and flowing guild master robes.</p>
<p>“That’s ‘Master’ now,” he said.</p>
<p>“Master Archimedo,” said Varie. Damn. They’d really been struck low.</p>
<p>“Would being a revisionist make you happy?” he asked.</p>
<p>Varie studied Archimedo’s face. Sometimes when the fresco painters needed a model for the Allfather God, they referenced Archimedo. Varie themself had once painted Archimedo as Allfather and pored over the lines in his face. Today he seemed so much older, so much less godly, so<i> tired</i>. So <i>done</i>.</p>
<p>“No,” said Varie. Damn it, they could feel tears again. Just the memory of painting, of making discoveries with their own abilities, feeling like they were finally earning Archimedo’s respect…there, but meaningless, and even worse than if Varie had never taken up their dream at all.</p>
<p>“Varie. Take a break. Go home.”</p>
<p>Home? To Wiloma? Varie shook their head. That little backwards town in the foothills could rot. Nobody there cared about painting. They were all miners, not to be distracted by the generation of treasures to be prized by the Empress.</p>
<p>“You could see your family,” </p>
<p>“But this is my fam…” Varie’s vision blurred with tears. “Fine. Whatever.”</p>
<p>They turned to the cloisters and pattered down the marble hallway. They could feel Archimedo staring after them.</p>
<p>“Go celebrate the Oath Festival,” he called. “…When you get back, I’ll see what I can do.”</p>
<p>“Yes, Master Archimedo,” said Varie. The Oath Festival was two weeks away, and would last for three days. That was a long time to sit in the shadow of the floating continent. Varie had no idea how to talk to their mother, their father, their siblings, who had never once left Wiloma in their lives. Who had been so hurt by Varie’s departure, they’d never even sent a single letter to the palace. It would be so different from communal brunch on the lawn with all the other painters. No salons in WIloma.</p>
<p>But at least Archimedo said… ‘when you get back.’</p>
<p>It sounded so full of pity.</p>
<p>On their way out of the palace, Varie spotted a painting of a flower with its petals arrayed over the guild portal. It wasn’t just any painting of a flower. It was a rose that Varie themself had applied to the plaster of that wall. Their first project as a fresco painter, three years prior. Varie paused to look at its overworked outlines, the obvious error in light source along the outer rim. The little veins in the petals, too pronounced.</p>
<p>Maybe…they’d never really been that good at painting.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>The sun shone down annoyingly along Main Street. A chill breeze flirted with Varie’s hair and canvas tunic. Varie’s mind wandered through each of their works in turn, remembering each as having its own issues, problems, mistakes forever preserved in plaster. Hell, even the amateurish flowers and hacky signs dangling overhead were better artwork than Varie could produce. Maybe they’d only been allowed to hang out in the palace because…because people liked them. Humored them. Something. Varie wracked their brain.<p>Or pitied them. Wiloma wasn’t exactly a hotbed of nobility. Varie’s bad mood framed Archimedo’s interactions as charity for some poor soul from the sticks. They walked under awning after awning, through milling crowds who had begun to don their short cloaks for the fall. Orange leaves twisted and danced through the air.</p>
<p>The airships docked to the south of the palace. Each looked like a sailing ship equipped for water, but miraculously suspended midair. They only carried people, to and fro, from the Palace to the earth below. The Empress kept a tight reign on Her ships. As such, boarding an airship meant stringent identification checks. </p>
<p>Varie took their place in the queue for airship tickets and fumbled for their Guild badge. It had Archimedo’s seal pressed into the metal, a flower with four petals and two leaves. A silken rope was tied to it. The badge contained magical glyphs that would set off a charge if anyone other than Varie presented it at the counter. Another innovation of the winged, its technical secrets kept juuust out of reach of the earthbound.</p>
<p>The ticket counter faced a gallery of shops. Mannequins, some half-nude in preparation, donned fall’s fashions: Shorts were getting puffier, scarves were becoming more robust. Rabbit- and ermine-fur cloaks could protect against the coming cold, for autumn and winter were far chillier at this height in the atmosphere. Pale teal was the color of the season.</p>
<p>Varie pretended like they hadn’t seen Lavinia browsing the wares. How could she even see what she was buying, anyway, with her ah, eye condition? And visor?</p>
<p>The queue shifted forward, a step or two at a time. Prospective passengers presented their badges to a clerk at the counter. One by one, each person chose their trip from a schedule that went up to one week in advance.  Although Varie had intended to grab a cheaper flight seven days in advance, the darker sections of their mind toyed with simply grabbing that day’s afternoon flight. Best to just, get it over with, right? Leave, quickly, for good. One-way ticket. Don’t drag things out. Today’s prices would wipe out Varie’s savings and there would be a schedule pinch as Varie darted back to the palace to collect their belongings, but they didn’t really care. Credit only mattered in the floating continent. As soon as Varie landed in Wiloma, they would have to figure out which remaining possessions of theirs they could barter for coins.</p>
<p>Three people away from the clerk’s counter, Varie heard an enthusiastic, “Varie!!”</p>
<p>Lavinia grabbed Varie’s arm and grinned. Her visor cast a sharp shadow down her face.</p>
<p>“Ooh, where are you headed?” Lavinia asked.</p>
<p>“Just—Home,” said Varie, trying to heed criticisms that they tended to blurt out things that they shouldn’t. It was probably too little too late.</p>
<p>“Oooooh,” said Lavinia, again, “That’s right, the Oath Festival is nigh. What fun! I love the feasts. What do they do in, ah, what is it, Wiloma?”</p>
<p>Damn it. Varie’s chest felt like it was going to explode. They had to tell someone, anyone, who wasn’t in charge of their career. “I’m on leave—” Varie started.</p>
<p>“Lucky you!” said Lavinia, not realizing Varie had more to say, “Ah, you know, I’d been looking for you, so hopefully I’m not too late, but I’m throwing a salon!”</p>
<p>“Oh, a salon?” said Varie. They remembered to move forward at a grunt from someone behind them in the queue. Just one more person remained in front, buying their ticket.</p>
<p>“Yesss, and I wanted to make sure you were there,” said Lavinia, pressing an invitation into Varie’s hand. “Archimedo’s always losing invitations, so best that this comes from me directly!”</p>
<p>Varie held the envelope. </p>
<p>“We’ll have games and music,” said Lavinia. “And a special guest! Besides you, I mean. Oh, it’s so exciting Varie.”</p>
<p>The clerk at the counter motioned Varie forward.</p>
<p>“Sure,” said Varie over their shoulder. Lavinia grabbed Varie and kissed both their cheeks as farewell, then scampered off into the crowd like some envelope-granting fairy. Varie stared after her, a hand to their face where one of Lavinia’s kisses had landed.</p>
<p>“Either come forward or step out of the queue,” said the clerk. The feather in their cap bobbed disagreeably.</p>
<p>“Oh, right,” said Varie. They presented their identification badge, and the clerk held it against a cabochon that lit up to verify it.</p>
<p>Varie didn’t book an afternoon trip after all.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>This was a self-indulgent setting porn chapter. NO REGRETS.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. The Chapter That Has an Extremely Dull Orgy in It</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie finds out too late that Lavinia's salons are all orgies. Enzo's hanging out too. Sure, why not.</p><p>Meanwhile the Magisterial council pores over fledging candidates. Prince Illumis II sways the vote for his own purposes.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter is not explicitly sexual but there is totally an orgy going on in the background. The orgy is not graphically/anatomically described. In fact I would probably rank the social awkwardness of being at an unwanted orgy as a sharper trigger than the glossed-over NSFW content.</p><p>That said, the italicized parts are all totally SFW and nonsexual if this kind of thing makes you too antsy. If you wanna skip the chapter wholesale you can get a more detailed summary at the end in the end notes.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>The Magisterial Council met around a vast table. Its surface of crushed and polished opal gleamed. This was a year of fledging, occurring once every forty years. Every week, the forty Magisters of the palace convened to discuss fledging candidates. The resulting discourse drew other members of the Empress’s host to the balconies overhanging the Pearlescent Table. As the year came to a close, the discussions only ever became more intense, and today a flock of cherubim giggled in the eaves. They would take what was said at the Council meeting and repeat it elsewhere.</i>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Varie hid behind a pillar when they heard Archimedo’s voice echo down the hall. The Guild Master shuffled past their hiding place, deep in conversation with two apprentices. They scampered after him while holding bundles of paintbrushes and pails full of plaster mix. Varie exhaled after they passed.<p>Had Varie been that young when they first alighted on the Empress’s shore? Varie struggled to understand that they’d been painting under Her grace for half a decade.</p><p>The Guild Master and his apprentices turned the corner and Varie could no longer see them, although they continued to hear their conversation. Varie shook their head and sneaked up the hallway in the opposite direction. Lavinia’s salon invitation was in their hand.</p><p>The event took place, like Varie’s sittings with Prince Illumis, in the Empress’s gardens. The only way to Her staircase was through hallways Varie had once felt very confident about striding through.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div><i>By the Empress’s mandate, only forty fledging candidates would suffice for Her purposes. Not one more, not one less.</i><p>
  <i>The Magisters discussed the silver envelopes sent out, of which only thirty-nine still existed. Only thirty-eight had been officially accepted. This year, a record number of fledgings had been declined: twenty-four. </i>
</p><p>
  <i>Forty humans needed to be fledged. Not one more, not one less.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>And so, fearing their Empress, each Magister began to pull out second- and third-tier candidates from their respective guilds. This sparked an argument, and this fanned into more arguments, for some Magisters did not care for the candidates of other Magisters. They left their seats to debate. Feathers bristled.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The cherubim pressed against each other, shoulder to shoulder, wing to wing, catching every word they could.</i>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Varie unfolded their invitation in the Empress’s garden. A sigil shaped like a compass lit up on the paper inside. It pointed towards a moonlit obelisk in the middle of a forest. As the trees closed in on Varie, the sigil rotated to keep Varie on the right path. They walked so deeply into the woods that the canopy above masked the stars.<p>Varie reached the base of the obelisk in the very densest part of the woods. A rectangular chunk of its wall vanished, lined with more glowing sigils. Varie peered inside.</p><p>They walked through a hallway where the walls lit up with sigils to light Varie’s way. They walked until they heard the churn of marble grinding against itself, and another doorway in the white stone appeared.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div><i><br/>The arguments at the Pearlescent Table turned in vicious circles. No candidate was good enough for the fortieth fledging. The Magisters all had to vote unanimously on each one, and none of the candidates had a majority that could be teased into either a full vote or cutting the candidate entirely. </i><p><i>It didn’t matter that discussion had ground to a halt, for each Magister knew that if they hadn’t an invitation drafted and ready to go by meeting’s adjourn, there simply </i>would not be<i> a fortieth candidate, and the Empress would have their heads. In spite of this, none could rally enough consensus to prune any of the candidates, for none were worthy of <i>every</i> Magister’s acclaim. As even the cherubim threatened to leave for better eavesdropping grounds, and the Magisters rehashed their own arguments in as many different, increasingly non-clever ways, it seemed that the Empress’s guillotines would taste blood. </i></p><p>
  <i>At that moment, a flash of light lit up the hall. The sound of thunder and birdsong rang out. There, on the balcony, stood a light-filled entity with four wings and the face of an owl.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The being laughed at the Magisters. It was a terrible, vicious laugh, soft like the slice of a blade.</i>
</p><p>
  <i></i>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>A chamber in the basement of the obelisk had been furnished with plush couches and heaps of pillows. A tendril of smoke from a hookah on a table curled upwards. If Varie wanted to, they could go bobbing for apples from a ten-foot-long claw-footed tub stocked to the brim with fruits. They mostly looked like apples, but there were strange shapes and smells coming from there.<p>Lavinia sipped at the hookah with some of her other guests. Not an ounce of stress rested on her bones. Her dress cloaked her in diaphanous leafy greens, and a tiara perched on her head, perhaps for fun. She perched on a pile of pillows like a great caterpillar. From her pursed lips, smoke rings formed and wobbled to the ceiling.</p><p>Varie had staked out a couch to themself and sat cross-legged. A lot of the guests at this party were…increasingly unclothed. And touching each other. To Varie’s surprise, Enzo wandered up and stood next to the couch.</p><p>“Yeah, Lavinia’s known for her orgies,” said Enzo, over a glass of cordial. His pinkie gestured about the room from his hand’s position on the glass’s stem. Varie could see flashes of flesh. “I’m surprised to see a goodie-two-shoes like you here, Varie.”</p><p>“Don’t touch me,” said Varie.</p><p>“I would never,” said Enzo, “I’m just saying. Lavinia’s salons are an acquired taste.”</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div><i>The cherubim squealed in delight. They gathered about the lit figure and snag his praises: Prince Illumis II! O Favored Son! Beholder of the Sacred Cloud!</i><p>
  <i>The Magisters looked to him, obedient but emotionally unaffected by his beauty. They were Eshim, one and all, and resistant to the charms of the Ophanim. The Prince ordered the Cherubim away, and the vanished in a cloud of giggles and feathers. The Prince then addressed his intended audience, those gathered about the Pearlescent table.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The Prince motioned to the Magister of Culture. He mockingly called him ‘Mr. Blackbird’, and inferred that the Magister of Culture was hiding a record. Why? That was what the Prince wanted to know.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The Magister explained that the candidate on said record was not valid for consideration. Varie of Wiloma was of common birth, from a no-name town, and had failed to live up to their potential. Not worth bringing up at all. The other Magisters murmured in agreement; this Varie sounded unimpressive.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>But then the Prince inquired as to Varie’s natal chart. Prince Illumis had seen it before, and he knew what was special about the way the stars and moons lined up on it. The Magister of Culture knew, too.</i>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>“Are you…” Varie started to ask, then realized mid-sentence that whatever Enzo was up to at an orgy, it wasn’t attractive information. It just seemed like a question too natural not to ask.<p>Enzo sighed. “Usually I don’t go to these. But I’ve a hunch that Lavinia’s being fledged. So. Just wanted to support her, I guess.”</p><p>“What makes you think that?”</p><p>“Do you know how old Lavinia actually is?” Enzo asked, while a scantily-clad man dropped by with a silver platter full of goblets.</p><p>Varie helped themself to a bit of wine, taking care not to stare too hard at the servant's attire. Anything to loosen up. It really sucked, being the most tightly-wound up person at an orgy. They tried to keep their attention focused on the wine and not what the other salon guests were doing.</p><p>“How old?” they asked.</p><p>“I hear around 130 years old, give or take,” said Enzo, “Hard to say. She’s been around for several fledgings…And look how the winged keep patching her up.”</p><p>“Dang,” said Varie. Because what else were you supposed to say? Lavinia sat and smiled at her guests in the center of the room. She seemed content to stay near the hookah and ‘watch’ everyone else with her eyeless face.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div><i><br/>The Magister of Culture declined to consider Varie of Wiloma further. Fledgings based on natal charts were not done. The humans had free will, even if they were inferior beings.</i><p>
  <i>The Magisters murmured and nodded. There was no reason to debate Varie. They would be cut from consideration entirely.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Prince Illumis demanded the Magisterial Council’s full attention. The humans were rejecting their invitations, that they’d supposedly fought a war to obtain. The humans were returning to the earthbound kingdoms and flaunting — flaunting! — their rejection of the Empress’s most special and shining gift. Varie had foolishly spoken of this aloud while in the Magister’s office.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The Magister of Culture dryly reminded Prince Illumis that the humans would not allow one of their number to join their host unwillingly. If his highness desired another war with the earthbound kingdoms, this was the perfect way to spark it. The Magisterial council agreed on this: A war would be terribly inconvenient.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The Prince spread his shining arms, triumphant. This Varie of Wiloma, a nobody, weren’t they? No nobility would be roused to avenge their disappearance. They’d disowned everyone who wasn’t on the floating isle, even their family. Who would cause a war over a lone failed painter, especially if it kept his mother happy?</i>
</p><p>
  <i>To that, the Magister had no rebuttal. The vote was taken, and though an Esh could not be charmed by an Ophan’s magic, they were swayed by reason and fear in their hearts. Unanimously, the fortieth and final fleding for that cycle was chosen, forty to zero.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The Prince announced that he was glad to have helped, but he must be going. He had a party to attend to…<br/>
</i>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Varie shows up to Lavinia's orgy. Nothing sexual happens to them. They get into a conversation with Enzo, who's also not into orgies, but is just there to see if Lavinia's going to announce her own fledging invitation.</p><p>Lavinia, also, is about 130~ years old, and her body keeps being repaired by angelic magic.</p><p>Meanwhile, the Magisterial council, including the Magister of Culture, have a grand meeting where they fight over who gets the last fledging nomination. Prince Illumis II shows up and convinces them to fledge Varie for two reasons:</p><p>1. Natal Chart compatibility (which isn't discussed in-depth for the reader's sake yet)<br/>2. Varie is a nobody, so no one will get mad if they go missing...</p><p>Then Prince Illumis excuses himself to go to a party. That's just how this story is gonna roll. Thanks for reading.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Rooftop Reverie</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie recounts a night spent with Prince Illumis, Enzo, and Lavinia. It's their first time sniffing a liquid called 'sol nectare' and the after effects are quite otherwordly.</p><p>Lavinia accepts a fledging invitation.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Just trying out some experimental flashback-style writing, do comment if it's too confusing and hard to follow...Also thank you to everyone who subscribes, kudos-es, and bookmarks, it's so flattering!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Varie didn’t know where the night had gone.</p><p>As they became aware of lead shingles biting into their back and sunburns on their cheeks, Varie remembered some sort of inciting incident: The arrival of Lavinia’s special guest, four wings and the owl mask. Flashes of light. Varie’s eyes flickered under their own eyelids. They didn’t want to open them yet, didn’t want to confront the sun.</p><p>There. That moment, last night, when Prince Illumis unveiled a tray of tiny silver cups, each no bigger than a thimble. That was where Varie’s memories unlinked themselves. But the cups were very popular at Lavinia’s party. The guests stumbled over each other in various states of undress to secure one for themselves. Within each cup was a sliver of some light-filled molten liquid, barely a crescent, like someone had poured the stuff into each cup using the rim of their thumbnail.</p><p>“Nectare,” the guests whispered and cooed to each other. A memory stitched itself together and Varie suddenly remembered their cries of ecstasy simply sniffing their cups, not even drinking it. </p><p>The Prince gave Varie their own cup of ‘Nectare’ personally, lifting it off the tray himself. The feathers on his wings fluffed up in reaction to Varie’s gaze. Varie could see them through the diaphanous silks strewn about his form.</p><p>“Oh, Varie, it’s very rude to stare,” he said. He coyly clasped his wings against his back. “Tsk tsk!”</p><p>Varie’s eyebrows knitted together, in the sun. What had even happened next? Something that felt like a hangover beat steadily behind their forehead. Had that stuff been some sort of alcohol? The nectare? Varie didn’t remember drinking it. They only remembered smelling it. But what did it smell like? Varie groaned and shifted. They put their wrist against their forehead. Still they squeezed their eyelids shut. The darkness behind their eyelids was brown from the sun beating down on them, on the roof…</p><p>They were on the roof.</p><p>Oh Empress, what had happened at that party?!</p><p>Varie sat up too quickly. They felt wobbly. It was bad to feel wobbly on a rooftop. Varie patted their clothing and found that everything was in place. As their eyes adjusted to the sun, they spotted Enzo curled up against a stone gargoyle, and there was Lavinia with her green dress fanning out over the roof tiles. Over her prone form, the winged form of the Prince crouched, owl’s eyes meeting Varie’s.</p><p>He gathered Lavinia into his arms, carefully. Varie watched his gloved hand land on Lavinia’s fledging invitation and tuck it into his belt. A breeze meandered past the Prince. Varie could smell the nectare again, and memories flickered to life in their mind.</p><p>“Varie. I want you to see how we take care of our own,” said the Prince.</p><p>That’s right. Lavinia had opened her fledging invitation at the party. Varie didn’t remember specifics, but — there’d been a lot of well, cavorting? It was like the four of them (Enzo, Lavinia, the Prince, and themself) had completely forgotten the rest of the party to…</p><p>Varie’s head hurt.</p><p>They’d larked around in the fields, out of their minds on the scent of nectare. And the Prince had just…enabled them. He’d sung songs and taught them dances. Their wills had been curled against his palm, and willingly, too. </p><p>Varie looked at their clothing. Same party suit as always, down to the pond scum that would never leave the ankles. There were fresh grass burns to match.</p><p>“We had a bit of fun in the fields,” the Prince confessed. “You took to the sol nectare so well. You’d have been such a fine candidate for fledging. Ah well. I know your opinion.”</p><p>He carried Lavinia to the edge of the rooftop.</p><p>“No!” Varie cried.</p><p>“What? I’m not going to drop her,” said the Prince, his masked face drawing up in mock horror. </p><p>Instead, the building ‘grew’ brick steps, one by one, from the rooftop to the courtyard below.</p><p>“Even if I did, it wouldn’t hurt her,” said the Prince. “These gardens are an illusion. We made it for you humans, to show you what we want of you.”</p><p>He took the new staircase down. “Sorry, that was a bad assumption, your highness,” Varie called down. They looked at Enzo, still passed out by the gargoyle. They watched the Prince dismount his new staircase below. The cathedral’s courtyard had a pool of still water at the center, and alabaster bricks paving the way to a garden path.

</p>
<p><i>“Sorry your highness,”</i> the Prince parroted back up. “Come down from there. You have an airship to catch.”Oh! Damn! Varie felt their heart lunge. What time was it? Oh no, they’d picked a 10:30 ship. Was it 10:30? It was so hard to tell.</p><p>“What about Enzo?”“Leave him.”</p><p>“But he’s just like…” Varie said. They gestured. Enzo was drooling a bit. </p><p>“I brought him along in case you needed a witness for all the flying we did last night.”“Flying…”Varie wracked their mind. They remembered Prince Illumis holding their wrist in his hand. They’d all daisy-chained themselves together and stepped into the air. Varie remembered seeing the ground fall away with each step. The ‘flight’ hadn’t been one of momentum, of swooping about. Instead, the group of them had ascended, laughing, on an invisible staircase, Prince Illumis in the lead. He showed them constellations Varie had never seen before. The animals had leapt forth out of the heavens and pranced about. Varie remembered the smell of celestial ether, heard the star song that sounded like ice sliding against ice.</p><p>The sun shone. “If you wish to fly again…” said the Prince, and his voice sounded like it came from a smile behind the mask. Varie figured Illumis meant to remind them of the airship.</p><p>The two of them walked down a brick path that wound through topiaries in the shapes of animals. Varie gulped, recognizing their shapes from the night before. The Prince had to walk on his tiptoes, slightly leaned over, in order to counterbalance the weight of his four wings. He smelled like outer space and sol nectare.</p><p>“H-how long do I have? To uh, to get to the airship docks, I mean,” Varie asked. They suddenly remembered to append a ‘your highness’ although it was more of a mutter. Varie feared to look at the Prince, and their whole body trembled with the hum of his Ecstasy so close nearby.</p><p>“Long enough,” said the owl-shaped mask. Lavinia, briefly stirring, nuzzled the Prince. He squeezed her to his chest, and rocked her back and forth. He shushed her.</p><p>The entrance to the staircase was behind a two-headed stegosaurus topiary. Every step towards it Varie took felt like a regret. They didn’t want to leave. A lump rose in their throat. The sun hit the shoulders squarely. Varie cast a glance behind them, but Illumis was gone. They felt the swelling behind their eyes and the wet, cool burst of tears down their face. As they strode towards the staircase, they felt words hiss into their ear:<i>“You should have left yesterday morning.”</i></p><p>Varie paused on the top step, shaking their head. It was as if Illumis himself had leaned over their shoulder, rested his chin on their neck, and spoken the words to them directly. But he wasn’t anywhere to be seen, and there was nothing but the sunlight and the fading heat on Varie’s skin.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. The Arrangements</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie's all packed up and ready to go, but something's wrong with their Guild badge. A trip to the Magister's office offers more questions than answers.</p><p>All Varie knows is, 'arrangments' have been made, and they want nothing to do with them.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The airship to Wiloma seated about fifty people. By the time Varie arrived, out of breath and cursing how heavy all their personal belongings had made their chest, they saw the last ten or so passengers boarding. Varie tried not to think about possibly leaving things behind, like brushes or stockings or their spare cloak (the one with the black paint smear on it). Varie set their chest on the ground and patted around their sleeves and waist — there it was, their badge, four petals, two leaves. Varie felt the custom scratch marks on the other side. They’d carved the image of a star there, long ago, during a boring lecture by Archimedo.</p><p>“Hi,” said Varie, nodding vigorously at the clerk. She wore a vermilion robe and admonished Varie for being so late. She took Varie’s badge and waved it over the cabochon. </p><p>Varie looked to the airship. They’d hoped their seat would be on a bigger airship. The smaller ones tended to make them feel nauseous. They waited for the magic cabochon to flash in response to their badge.</p><p>It didn’t.</p><p>“Let me try it again,” sighed the clerk.</p><p>Meanwhile, the airship’s crew clambered about its sails, checking the rigging and calling to each other. A few of the crew members perched on the side of the ship and looked directly at Varie. They motioned to the clerk to get a move on.</p><p>“I’m sorry, do you have a real Guild badge?” the clerk asked.</p><p>“Uh,” said Varie. They stared at the badge in the clerk’s hand. Maybe they’d picked up someone else’s badge? Varie took it back and looked it over. A blast of air startled them. They looked up to see the airship’s fanlike engines whirl to life, although the ship remained hovering in one place…for the time being. More of the crew had gathered on the edge to gawk at Varie.</p><p>“It’s real! This is my Guild badge. It isn’t fake,” said Varie, “Try it again.”</p><p>The clerk shrugged and took it again. Still, the cabochon did not flash.</p><p>“Security,” the clerk said over her shoulder, but Varie was too distracted by the airship’s drawbridge lifting and the whistles of the crew.</p><p>“Hey! They can’t just leave,” said Varie.</p><p>“Maybe you shoulda got here earlier,” said the clerk. She smiled. Flatly.</p><p>“Wait—“ said Varie, but the airship’s engines gunned and the sails turned. The ship hovered away from the dock and began its long glide to Wiloma.</p><p>Two armored fellows muscled their way between Varie and the clerk. They wore slitted helmets and the sun lanced off their shoulders. Varie was hoisted by the forearms out of the queue.</p><p>“Hey!” Varie said, wriggling and kicking between the two guards. Their toes clanked off their sides. “Hey, my stuff! My stuff!”</p><p>The last Varie saw of their chest was it sitting there on the dock, half-open, with their spare cloak spilling out.</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>“Pleeeease, let me see Archimedo. Master Archimedo. Please,” Varie begged through the bars in the jail cell. “I swear I’m in the Painter’s Guild. He can clear this up. He knows who I am.”<p>“Sure,” said the guard sitting outside. “I’m sure he’ll be right in. How did you get a hold of this badge, anyway? Pretty good fake one.”</p><p>“It isn’t fake! It was working yesterday,” said Varie, repeating themself for the numpteenth time. They could smell their own body odor. There was nowhere else for the scent to go in the small room. Every time Varie thought they were about to calm down, they’d feel their own blond hair sticking to their scalp and all the sweat pooling in their armpits. And their stuff! It was gone.</p><p>“No no no, nonononono, no,” Varie said, pacing back and forth in front of a bench chained to the wall. They smacked their own forehead.</p><p>“Settle down in there,” said the guard. </p><p>Varie heard the rumble of Archimedo’s grumping about. They threw themself against the barred window and hopped up and down on their tiptoes.</p><p>“Archimedo! I mean, Master Archimedo! Help, please!”</p><p>“Yes, yes yes,” said Archimedo. He bowed into the hallway between the jail cells. “That’s Varie of Wiloma. That’s their badge.”</p><p>Varie caught a look at his frizzy face. They couldn’t figure out his emotion, but they could guess: Frustrated, angry…scared?</p><p>Soon enough the two of them were striding briskly through the Painter’s Guild hallways, into the cloisters, and up the staircase to the Magister’s mezzanine.</p><p>“Maybe it’s just broken,” said Varie. They longed for their chest. Hopefully no one had made off with it. Nothing inside was valuable, per se, but Varie liked what they owned. They felt sick at the thought of losing some of their favorite apparel.</p><p>“Guild badges do not break, Varie,” said Archimedo, and he made to take a step upwards.</p><p>Varie knew that, whatever happened, they did not want to go see a Magister, especially a black-winged Magister whose most recent interaction was to watch Varie scream and cry and beg to remain in the Avias Palace. Anything to avoid that half-moon gaze, those deadly understated ‘Hm’s.</p><p>“Well, maybe I can go back down to the docks and—“ Varie tried again.</p><p>“And get arrested for not having identification on your person?” Archimedo said. “No. We are going directly to the Magister of Culture and clearing this up.”</p><p>Varie tried to put the gold-plated fountain between themself and the Magister’s office door. They wished that all the mythological characters spouting water might protect them. Archimedo waved at Varie, indicating the Magister’s open door. Varie couldn’t figure out a non-stupid way of articulating their desire to stay outside in the mezzanine, so they pattered in after the Guild Master.</p><p>“Hm. This badge is still functional,” said the Magister of Culture. The winged had a sense for magic and could tell just by looking if a guild badge had the proper enchantments. </p><p>The Magister sat at his desk with his wings resting behind him like usual, but Varie noticed several changes to the office decor. The windows were open, but faced a landscape clouded over by a pending rain storm. Wind nudged the trees to the east. Stationed in each corner of the office, kitty corner to shelves of documentation, were two enormous suits of armor. They, too, were winged, and their helmets were fashioned after hawk beaks.</p><p>“The name, however, has been updated,” the Magister informed his two visitors, Archimedo mostly, but there was a glance over the half-moon glasses at Varie. “This badge therefore no longer works.”</p><p>Archimedo seemed to be thinking about something while drumming his fingers against each other.</p><p>“Can I get a new one?” Varie asked.</p><p>Archimedo winced.</p><p>“A new one would be delivered shortly if needed,” said the Magister. He emoted so little that Varie had to assign him an emotion, and they chose ‘disdain’.</p><p>“But I…I missed my flight out,” said Varie, and Archimedo coughed to interrupt. Good thing, too, because Varie could feel the adrenaline coursing through their veins at the thought of having nowhere to go, to sleep, nothing to eat, for the night. They were about to break down, again, in the Magister’s office.</p><p>“Magister, Sir. Varie’s bed recently went to the Count’s nephew, you know the one. The beds go so fast in the Guild hall,” Archimedo explained, leaning over his own feathered cap as humbly as possible. “Without a badge, Varie no way to access their remaining credit. I am sure this is understood. I would not consign Varie to the streets over this update in, ah, Varie’s name, Magister, Sir.”</p><p>Varie could feel the lump in their throat. Archimedo.</p><p>“We prefer the same. An arrangement has been made, and the issue is no longer your concern, Guild Master,” said the Magister. He completed some paperwork with a swipe of the quill. </p><p>One of the suits of armor strode forth and took the Magister’s missive. The slitted helmet turned to Varie. Varie couldn’t look back into the armored person’s eyes. It was completely dark in there. The second suit of armor stepped forth to escort Varie on their other side. Wings with metal feathers extended. The armored wing sweep Varie out the door. The last Varie caught of the conversation behind them was the Magister requesting that Archimedo stay to address further Guild concerns.</p><p>It was just Varie and the two armored guards out in the mezzanine again. The door closed behind them. The guards said nothing over the sound of water gushing from the fountain. Varie went for the staircase, assuming they were to be escorted back to the Guild dormitories. The guards halted in front of Varie, a unified wall of encased steel. The guards then took a step forward, together, and Varie had no choice but to walk backwards, a step at a time. Varie about-faced at the guards’ direction. </p><p>Varie realized they hadn’t seen much of the Magister’s mezzanine. They walked underneath an archway to see an even bigger rotunda with more doorways. Varie could only assume these all led to the offices of the other Magisters, all forty of them. The walls were painted with green vines, details gilded with gold. The ceiling shimmered with gilded script in a language Varie could not read. They couldn’t tell where the light came from in this room, but it was so well-lit that Varie couldn’t see their own shadow, nor the shadows of the guards behind them.</p><p>“Where are we going?” Varie asked, but that earned a silent shove.</p><p>Varie was escorted outdoors, into the Empress’s gardens. Tonight Varie could see a planet with rings mingling with the stars. Shooting stars fell everywhere. The sky was so deep and high up, Varie could feel their knees quake with vertigo.</p><p>“Sorry, but, where are we going?” Varie asked of the silent guards again, “Please, I just, I don’t understand what’s going on. I just want to know.”</p><p>The armored guards were twin monoliths of shadow in the darkness. Varie couldn’t see the palm that landed on their shoulder in response to their question. Varie stumbled further along a path of stones just barely lit. The sky yawned above. All of Varie’s muscles tensed. They could see an opening in the hedges further on. They could sense one of the guards pulling up from behind. If Varie hesitated one more moment, that opening would be gone. Who knew where that path went.</p><p>Varie bolted.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Finally we're at the 'fun' part, and here's where I idly wonder about smushing the earlier chapters into longer sections so that people don't think I'm leading them on too long. But, yes. This will become body horror wingfic. The tags tease, but do not lie.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Fledged</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie gets lost in the garden during their bid to escape, only to encounter a familiar angel. </p><p>Things get weird.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Specific content warnings for this chapter, please heed:<br/>-Syringe/needle<br/>-Non-consensual body modification starts here<br/>-Varie's clothing gets ripped and torn, but they aren't made naked<br/>-Varie gets verbally negged</p><p>NO sexual assault takes place! But it is kind of a kinky scene in my opinion! Maybe you actually want this. I don't know! We're all strangers on the internet!</p><p>The intent is for Varie to, through the rest of the story, proactively recover from this event and restore their sense of self. </p><p>If you want a more detailed summary in lieu of reading through this chapter, see end notes. Take care of yourself mentally and emotionally.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Empress’s garden, during the day, sprawled under an impossibly bright sun. The pathways that Archimedo followed were clean and clear, marked by crushed alabaster. Varie had never felt lost in the Empress’s garden, although they’d also never wandered through there alone.</p><p>But this? This was like an entirely different place. No matter where Varie turned, there lay thorns, or shadows sliding sinuously within brief flickers of moonlight, or branches locked together in front of them. Wherever they turned, vegetation lay fresh scratchces and scrapes across Varie’s skin. Their clothing suffered, too, leaving behind linen threads. Had Varie been in a calmer frame of mind, they might have winced at the condition of the embroidered hem and collar of their favorite outfit.</p><p>For the first time in several minutes, Varie saw the stars in a patch of sky. They leapt forward while the cold night air flicked a scrape on their exposed knee, and found themselves, incredibly, in a patch of soft grass. Looking around, their eyes had clearly adjusted to the moonlight, for there were trimmed hedges, benches, and a sculpture of a figure sitting on one of them. The figure had been carved so well, Varie could imagine the silken draperies wafting in the breeze.</p><p>Now this was the garden they remembered! Varie stood up and brushed bits of leaf and grass from their person. The marble archway and altar nearby seemed familiar, but Varie could not say that this specific place sparked anything in their memory. Varie hunted about for one of those stark white paths that Archimedo had always followed. They could get themself out to the staircase back down to the Guild Hall.</p><p>Except the sculpted figure moved. Varie froze. They watched the figure’s head spin all around on their shoulders…</p><p>…Owl-like.</p><p>“Good evening,” said Prince Illumis II. In the moonlight, the mask’s eyes seemed to squint, the way eyes squint during an honest smile. He rose from the bench. His body twisted around to match the direction of his head, which didn’t move. Illumis spread his arms. The silks cloaking him and his wings shimmered. He seemed to cast a faint light of his own, and though the flares of the falling stars above were brighter, Varie could not take their eyes off him.</p><p>“Help me,” said Varie. Their voice was hoarse, as if the thorns had scraped their throat. They gulped. “Help me, please, Illumis. They’re chasing me, they’re shoving me around.”</p><p>“Why, Varie,” said Illumis, “You dying thing, you. You live in our palace. You attend our salons. You eat our food. You imbibe our nectar. And you call me, the <i>Prince of All Creation</i>, by my first name?”</p><p>Varie shuddered. They wanted Illumis’s help. He radiated such joy. They couldn’t figure out why they suddenly feared him so. He’d occupied so many of their daydreams and been so kind, even during Varie’s failures. Varie couldn’t figure out whether to flee or run into Illumis’s arms.</p><p>“We’re very unhappy with you,” said Illumis. “How is this surprising?” </p><p>Sticks snapped. Varie spun. The two armored angels had arrived, silent as ever, from opposite edges of the hedged-in garden. Their forms cut dark silhouettes in the night sky.</p><p>Illumis turned his owl’s face just slightly towards them. “And yet, I’ve chosen mercy. Instead of an end, you will experience a beginning.”</p><p>The three angels triangulated on Varie. The two armored ones closed in, smelling of iron. Varie, weighing how much they feared these silent angels versus Illumis. They’d take their chances with the former, armor and all.</p><p>Varie flung themself through the gap between the two armored angels. They didn’t know what they were going to do when they hit the hedge beyond. Maybe they’d leap over it.</p><p>A force hit Varie. Varie couldn’t leap over any hedges, for they were flat on their back, with no air in their lungs. The angel knight’s armored wing swung back, having struck a decisive blow to Varie square on the chest. Varie wriggled like an overturned beetle. </p><p>The two knights grabbed Varie by the shoulders. Varie was hauled upwards and leaned over the altar in the garden. Illumis stood in front of said altar and showed the gasping Varie a golden syringe. </p><p>“Shh, shh shh,” he said, “See, haven’t I chosen a nice place for this? I’ve always liked this little garden.”</p><p>The Prince held the syringe to the sky and drew back the plunger. From nothing, the glass chamber filled with liquid light. Varie could sense the euphoria emanating from the Prince’s hands. That was sol nectare in there, and it was armed with a needle an inch long.</p><p>Varie couldn’t even speak. The breath just wasn’t present to do so. The knights casually ripped the back of Varie’s coat and tunic in half with their hands. Goosebumps rose all along Varie’s back in the autumn chill of the Empress’s garden. The knights allowed Varie to cling to the remaining rags and cover themselves.</p><p>“Locate the soul bone,” said the Prince to the armored angels.</p><p>Gauntleted fingers traced down the vertebrae in Varie’s back, one counting down from their skull, the other counting up from their hips. They met at the twelfth dorsal vertebra and paused there. The Prince’s owl mask tilted, watching. He twitched his thumb on the syringe and spritzed a bit of nectar into the air. </p><p>“I forgive you. You are merely the cocoon for a higher being, and do not understand what you’ve tried to reject,” said the Prince. He flicked the glass chamber with his fingernails.</p><p>Varie coughed and could barely speak over the pain wracking their bones. The Prince wandered behind them, needle in palm.</p><p>“For whatever it’s worth, I hear it’s pleasant, being fledged,” he said, “It’s just like falling asleep, into a dream. Shh, shh.”</p><p>“Please…don’t,” said Varie. Their face pressed into the cold marble.</p><p>The needle sank directly into Varie’s spine through their twelfth dorsal vertebrae. The pain wasn’t as sharp as they expected, and it faded as Varie’s senses crumbled. The last things they sensed were the needle sticking out of their bone, a sky so full of shooting stars it looked like scratch marks, and the perfume of the nectar on the air.</p><p>Varie heard their own breath soften into shallow gasps. Illumis shushed them. Finally, he said:</p><p>“Rest, awaken, and arise, Ophan: <i>Variel</i>.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Detailed summary:<br/>Varie gets lost in the garden and stumbles into a little patch of grass containing an altar, hedges, and a statue. The statue is actually Prince Illumis II. He captures Varie to fledge them.</p><p>Fledging is done by injecting sol nectare into the 'soul bone', which is the twelfth dorsal vertebra in the human spine. The process initially causes Varie to faint. Prince Illumis II calls Varie by their new name, 'Variel'.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. The Absolute Minimum Amount of Body Horror Required to Qualify for the Body Horror Tag</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>So what's a soul bone? Let's find out!</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Mild body horror here but if you've read this far and aren't interested or are put off by this, I genuinely don't know what to tell you. The body horror is the point of writing this for me so it won't be going under a detailed summary at the end.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The last time Varie had been home in dinky rickety Wiloma, Varie’s mother cried. Just a bit. She hid it behind hands that were starting to wrinkle. This was after a brief visit from the Avias Painter’s Guild stationed in the nearby earthbound city of Rastone. What a grand city that had been, a melting pot of artisans all around the city, all jockeying for a letter from Archimedo, the guild master.</p><p>At the time, Varie had felt so sharp and alive, learning how to craft their own brushes and paints, applying hues to the walls and flexing on those artists who could barely understand a still life. They latched onto every technique they could. Outpaced their own masters. They’d scrawled draperies and studied nude models, learned all of the muscles of the body, the proportions, the bones. More precisely, how the flesh all worked together within a drawing, and where the skin stretched thin across certain points of the skeleton.</p><p>Varie knew exactly how many vertebrae were in the human spine, and they’d never once heard of a ‘soul bone.’</p><p>In the sleepy chapel hallways of Wiloma, no one had ever preached about metaphysical anatomy. The specifics of worshiping the Empress in Her floating palace were never revealed by the local pastor, only that She was just and good. No mention had ever been made of the Eshim who served the humans closest to Her, or the Cherubim who sang Her praises, or the Ophanim who gathered about Her and created beautiful things, secret things, forever kept from the lands below. Varie had only learned those things, piecemeal, from their peers in the palace, and it was always a slip up of the tongue, a whisper not meant to be overheard. Those worshipers back in that quaint little chapel in the mountains? They would continue along their way, believing simpler truths.</p><p>Varie had also never slept facing down. Their fingers dug into sateen cotton sheets and a fine fur blanket. It was less of a bed that they pushed themselves up out of, and more of a nest, composed of dozens of pillows and blankets heaped upon each other. Someone had carried them up to this place while they were unconscious. Varie held the remains of their coat to their chest, knowing that it was still ripped open in back but not wishing to confirm the events of the night prior. Not yet.</p><p>They were in a stone room with windows looking out over hills and forests. Varie shuffled to the window on their knees. They squinted. Distantly they could make out the roofs of a manor or two. They were very high in the air, and they could sense faint vibrations, as if an extra layer of reality was humming into existence. Closing their eyes, they realized that the sensation was emanating from their back. </p><p>They choked up. There was a collar around their neck, one that Varie couldn’t seem to dislodge. Varie’s fingertips scrabbled at metal and inlaid cabochons, each as big as Varie’s palm. No catch could be found to the collar, nor hook. The metal joined itself seamlessly as though sealed around Varie’s neck by a master craftsman.</p><p>The sensation hummed in Varie’s soul bone again. The thing around their neck. Not a collar, but a wheel. Or something. It felt like some sort of communication, but it was missing context, information. ‘Wheel’ was simply the word that Varie’s mind supplied for the emanation.</p><p>The two armored angels from the night before were just outside the closed door. Varie hadn’t seen, nor heard them, but they just <i>knew</i>. The angels, in turn, were aware of Varie. They emanated something like a greeting. Not spoken words, just a feeling. They indicated that they were Erelim. In that moment, Varie became aware that, though Erelim universally looked alike in their armor, these two <i>felt</i> different from each other. </p><p>The Erel on the left came from House Illumis, which caused Varie to fear them. The Erel on the right had been appointed to this station from House Lukael, which Varie did not recognize. Individually, the two Erelim did not care for each other, but had united via an alliance between Illumis and Lukael. Lukael. Whoever that was. Varie tried to remember if they’d ever heard that name before. Either way, the Erelim beyond the door meant Varie no harm, although they had orders to stand guard.</p><p>“Can you let me out, please,” Varie said, hoarse.</p><p>The Erelim disliked Varie’s voice greatly. It didn’t befit an ophan to suck in air through wet human lungs and expel it through their vocal chords. That was how lesser beings communicated. The winged folk emanated the things they meant to share with other winged, thank you very much. Varie squirmed when they realized the Erelim meant that beaming sensation from their back. That was ‘emanating’.</p><p>“What’s an ‘ophan,” Varie yelled through the door. “Empress’s tits, just tell me something.”</p><p>Varie jiggled the doorknob. It was molded to look like an egret, a bird Varie recognized from the mountain pond just outside of Wiloma. One of the Erelim thudded the door with their spear. Varie sprang back and tripped into the nest of pillows and blankets. They landed on the back of their hip bone, which drove into the small of their back.</p><p>Pain seared through Varie.</p><p>They helplessly came to the conclusion that they’d whited out when their senses returned. First they felt the motley pile of bedding, second they felt a dull pain from the small of their back, then the gentle choke of the collar around their neck. Fuzzily, the emanations from the Erelim outside flared up, although they were muffled. Varie rolled to their side. The emanations came in more clearly: Concern, surprisingly. </p><p>Lesson one learned: That ‘soul bone’ was not meant to be treated roughly.</p><p>Lesson two: The Erelim did not want Varie to be hurt. What?</p><p>Varie winced. The Erelim rapped on the door with their spears, requesting permission to enter. To enter? Varie was confused. They thought they were the one trapped inside of the room. The thought of seeing the Erelim within filled Varie with terror. They remembered the gauntleted knuckles sinking into their bare skin, and the clap of the wing against their frail human body. Varie apparently emanated this without thinking, for the rapping ceased and the Erelim de-escalated their emanations to quiet fretting.</p><p>A tentative moment was spent exploring the small of Varie’s back with their own fingers. Jolts went up and down their spine. Varie whimpered. They covered their mouth. The feeling of touching the soul bone was like nothing they’d ever experienced before. It was like joy, terror, suffering — all in one.</p><p>Varie suddenly became aware of a third entity approaching outside.</p><p>“Are we done scaring the ophan shitless yet?” barked a woman’s voice. That wasn’t an emanation! Were they human? Varie gathered up their bedding around them.</p><p>“Help, please!” Varie called.</p><p>The Erelim vented their disgust but allowed the woman, whoever she was, to press herself against the door from the other side.</p><p>“Hey! I’d love to, but nobody can enter your sanctuary without your permission,” said the voice outside. “Can I come in?”</p><p>“Yes, hurry,” said Varie. They gathered more of the bedding around themself. They weren’t exactly clothed well. “But— Just you! Not them.”</p><p>“Yup! Gotcha,” said the woman. “Coming in now.”</p><p>The door creaked open slowly. Varie was expecting someone of average height. The face was human enough, but it poked in through the opening of the door about two feet off the ground. Whoever this was, they wore their brown hair in tightly-defined curls under a cloth crown, eyeliner done with cat’s eye swirls, with pursed lips painted madder red. Their makeup was completely immaculate. A single black crystal hung from one of her ears.</p><p>“Hey! I’m Florael,” she said. “You must be Variel.”</p><p>“Hi,” said Varie. They came to the conclusion that, for whatever reason, this Florael person was crawling on the ground. Maybe the Erelim had smacked her down with their wing, too! </p><p>“Nope,” said Florael, sensing Varie’s thoughts. “They wouldn’t dare. I’m Lukael’s favorite.” She laughed and nudged the door open further. The Erelim, remaining outside, agreed with Florael. If they took offense at her vocalizing instead of emanating, they hid it.</p><p>Florael padded towards Varie on four small paws. She wore an usekh around her shoulders but it was clear that it was for fashion, unlike the ‘wheel’ around Varie’s own neck. Varie’s hopes plummeted as they realized, Florael’s body was that of a housecat, furred in coral-pink with tabby stripes. Wings cloaked her sides, primarily red and orange but with other mottled colors making up the primaries and secondaries.</p><p>She may have sounded human enough, but Florael was just another fucking angel.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Message from the Liminal Darkness</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie gets their bearings, only to be knocked flat into WTFsville again. A mysterious entity, larger than the world, drifts through the darkness, and only appears to acknowledge 'Variel', the younger version of itself. Florael attempts to do damage control afterward. The erelim have other ideas.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Florael drew herself into a corner and sat, as housecats often do, with her tail about her paws. Her usekh dangled with soft chiming sounds. She lowered an even gaze at Varie.</p><p>“Mmmk, so you don’t trust me, obviously,” she said. “What are we going to do?”</p><p>Florael was a cherub, and she wanted Varie to know she had celebrated the 1623rd anniversary of her own fledging just last week. When Varie thought about Poyel, Florael countered that the Empress’s consort was even older than herself and still couldn’t keep all of his animal bits under control. There was a feeling of love behind the thought; the exhausted variety, anyway.</p><p>Thwap, whap, went her tail. Florael’s pupils slitted.</p><p>“Maybe if you were, I dunno, wild guess here, clothed?” she offered. </p><p>Florael raised her paw towards the back part of the tower room. There, between two windows, was a robe hanging from something. When Varie removed the robe, they noticed that it had been draped over the very altar from the garden in the night before. White marble, Ionic order, square top, reached halfway up Varie’s leg in height. Its base bore a chiseled placard:</p><div class="center">
  <p>VARIEL<br/>Varie of Wiloma<br/>04/04/1600-04/04/1624</p>
</div><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Varie trailed after Florael, who leapt about the columns lining the skyway outside of their room. They couldn’t get used to the cool air billowing against their bared back. The robe covered Varie modestly in billowing teal, but a giant V cut in back exposed their body down to the dimples of their hips. Emanations grazed Varie there from angels they couldn’t see.<p>At Varie’s request to bring a blanket with them and wear it like a cloak over the low back, Florael’s tail had twitched.</p><p>“No,” said the cherub. Other winged folk took offense to covered soul bones. Florael herself was deeply unsettled by the idea. “It’ll get better when your feathers come in,” she added.</p><p>Varie slapped a hand against one of the columns to steady themself. The thought of feathers swum around in their head. The skywalk arced through a vast sea of clouds below. An orange sun on the horizon perpetually stained those clouds bloodred, fading into purple. Varie felt like they were about to fall right off into nothing but endless sky below, even though there was still three feet of skywalk between them and the drop.</p><p>The two attendant Erelim paused in the hallway, next to each other behind Varie. Florael looped back to Varie.</p><p>“You’re really not taking this well, are you,” she said, a paw on Varie’s knee.</p><p>Varie realized they were emanating all sorts of conflicting thoughts, by the way Florael tilted her head and indicated, in return, that she was listening.</p><p>“Yeah, so, I’m not fond of this hallway either,” said Florael. “Let’s get this over with.”</p><p>The Erelim prodded Varie forward.</p><p>The hallway opened up into a vast lattice of bridges arching over crystalline towers. Clouds floated between the buildings far below. Lights glinted from them. Varie wondered how they could see candlelight from so far away. The air was very thin and cold, and Varie found themself taking deeper and deeper breaths.</p><p>“You know you don’t have to,” Florael said. She’d chosen to remain behind with the Erelim while Varie wandered across a platform stretching over the celestial city below.</p><p>“What?” said Varie. Were they allowed to come back?</p><p>“Breathe,” said Florael, with a little shrug.</p><p>Varie sob-laughed. In spite of themself, Florael’s sense of humor was getting to them. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen. The sky above was deep indigo, and visually, devoid of anything, including clouds or stars. However, Varie could sense vast entities passing each other way up in the darkness. In turn, they knew those entities were sensing their presence in return.</p><p>“What do I do,” Varie asked, clutching their very thin robe in the astral coldness, “Why aren’t you out here with me?”Florael had stopped speaking. Her next emanations felt like a dwindling whisper. She was attempting to comfort, to bolster, which turned into a concrete promise of a cup of hot brandy later, because this wasn’t going to be fun. Then she quieted herself.</p><p>The sky above was empty.</p><p>Until it was not.</p><p>Varie beheld GOTZON: 1598th Bearer of the Empress’s Chariot, Visage of Harmony, Throne Allmighty of the Forgotten Ages, and thousands of other names that emanated into Varie’s very being. It was nothing but interlocking, constantly whirling ’wheels’, all made of the same materials as the one around Varie’s neck, but stretching for millions of light years into darkness too thick for Varie to look through. As the wheels spun, faster and faster, they formed a zoetrope of an eye that blinked at Varie, not unkindly. Varie noticed that although GOTZON had spun for millions of years and turned judgements and officiation many times over that for all of the winged, it was missing chunks of its wheels, its jewels were cracked, and it shuddered from the effort of simply remaining aloft in outer space.</p><p>Its moments were running out.</p><p>Just as suddenly, the sky was empty once more.</p><p>Realizations cascaded into Varie’s mind as they fell to their knees. </p><p>“I’m — that?!” Varie called to Florael.</p><p>Florael beckoned with her paw. She imparted the sense that, while GOTZON hadn’t obliterated Varie on the spot, any number of entities hanging out in the liminal darkness could.</p><p>Varie followed the Erelim back to their room, Florael pattering at Varie’s side.</p><p>“So, yeah, that thing on your neck that you’re calling ‘wheel’,” said Florael, “It means you’re an ophan, and this is the ophanic estate, where the ophanim exist when they’re not…elsewhere. And they’re wheels, if that’s the term we’re going with.”</p><p>“It was broken,” said Varie. </p><p>“Yup. They’ve taken their licks. The ophanim are all really, really old, and I mean really old, like, primordial, you know, taking meteorites to the face before we had an asteroid belt ‘old’,” said Florael, “So! Let’s hash all this out over a cup of hot brandy. Get us some nice blankies, snuggle up—“</p><p>One of the Erelim, of House Illumis, slammed their spear against the door, barring both Varie and Florael’s way. Varie got a definite sense that Florael was keeping their emanations slow and simple for their sake, for the conversation that emanated between the erel and the cherub was sharp, fast, and impossible for Varie to understand.</p><p>Florael’s hackles raised but she smoothed them back with a licked paw. “I forgot. Variel, you were invited to a dinner party.”</p><p>Varie emanated exhaustion. For all the time they’d spent hoping and dreaming of the palace salons, this was too much.</p><p>“I mean it’s a small gathering,” said Florael.</p><p>Illumis’s erel emanated: The guest list was kept very small, courtesy of His Imperial Highness, Prince Illumis II.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I don't know why I keep using parties as a plot device.</p><p>Also, I don't know whether I should be capitalizing these angelic orders or not. Until I know which way I'm going with that apologies for the lack of proofing on Erelim v. erelim, for example. Feel free to comment a preference on angelic orders if one or the other is easier to read.</p><p>As for the dates on Varie's placard, I'm also not sold on the numerical system there since this isn't Earth, it's a fantasy afterlife type world on top of a fantasy world. I just slotted in an Earthlike time period for the time being so for clarity's sake it's Earthlike date notation.</p><p>Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. At Some Point This Will Be Erotica But Right Now It's Just a Hot Mess</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie (or Variel, as everyone keeps calling them) arrives to the Prince's party, only to find that there are no guests and honestly...no party. Varie is expected to provide this, somehow.</p><p>Itzkeel the seraph is very hungry. The Prince's erel becomes mortified by the Prince's resultant behavior. There's a surprise guest in spite of the party not really existing.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Small warning for brief, non-gory mentions of vore. </p><p>Itzkeel is intended to be a random assortment of letters and not a reference to angels documented in Biblical lore. I will probably remove a lot of the 'real' angel names in a future revision round, too. </p><p>Also warning for more ridiculous asides into the angelology of this fictitious world. I keep trying to write slow burn and it keeps turning into *this* instead. Shout-out to everyone who's waiting around for the tags to become legitimate.</p><p>Have fun. Be kind to yourself and others.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Prince Illumis II hosted his party in the Gossamer Moon Chateau. Will-o-wisps lit the room. Supporting the inside of the chateau were columns composed of limestone stalagmites and stalactites meeting each other. The ceiling design, two stories up, featured interlocking scripted words that changed messages when one looked away and then back.</p><p>The dining room floor was composed of one endless, impossibly-perfect mirror. Varie pattered across it as slowly as the erelim would allow them. They stopped in the middle of the room and looked at the second story. Prince Illumis II stood there with his hands on the railing.</p><p>“Ah, Variel,” Prince Illumis called, “I want you to meet my associate, Itzkeel.”</p><p>Itzkeel’s presence emanated from Varie’s right. As bright as a piece freshly pulled from the glass-blower’s kiln, it had seven serpentine heads and walked on dragon’s feet. A long tail twined behind it, and its molten wings lay flat across its back. The inside of the angel’s body, seen through its gaping mouths and eyes, was empty darkness. The two erelim stepped out of its path, for their armor would melt in its presence.</p><p>As Itzkeel approached, Variel stopped shivering, then sweated. The seven snake heads looped around Variel’s body, the pits of its eyes sweeping over their head, their neck, the small of their back. Special attention landed on the wheel about Variel’s neck, landing on each cabochon in turn. Though the seraph never touched Varie, they could smell hair burning, from somewhere. The only sound it made was a faint sizzle from deep inside the recesses of its body.</p><p>At last Itzkeel flapped its wings of flame once, and then its warmth simply vanished. Varie was alone in the ballroom with Prince Illumis looking down upon them through his owl mask. He emanated his memories of those who had come before Varie.</p><p>The other human candidates, forty years before and forty years before that, had been fledged like, but not quite like, Varie, with half-formed wheels about their necks, or wheels in the wrong places. One by one, Itzkeel had spotted each of the flaws in the Prince’s previous attempts at creating ophanim. The seraph had blocked the paths of these unfortunate half-formed angels with its flaming wings. Itzkeel had swallowed them whole, each a human-sized bulge in one of Itzkeel’s necks. The emanations were not accompanied by horror or empathy for those eaten by the seraph, only anger and despair that the previous ophanim were not ‘perfect’ enough.</p><p>And then there was Illumis’s impression of Varie.</p><p>“It took!” said Illumis, giddy, and he left his perch. Varie heard the patter of his boots hitting mirrored staircase. He swept across the ground floor, gathered Varie in his arms and swung them around before setting them on their feet again. For the better part of a century he had ached for an ophan all his own. The Empress wouldn’t allow her son to bother the big, old ones, like GOTZON. </p><p>“And now you’re here, my perfect ophan,” said Illumis, “We must get started! How about a table, and a feast!”</p><p>“What,” said Varie.</p><p>“Oh, Mother, I’ve not had a feast for ages,” said Illumis, “Oh! And can we have music? Can you make an orchestra? Lights! Sculptures!”</p><p>Varie’s mind filled with emanations of the perfect ballroom party, complete with guests, fancy dresses, carpeting, and literally the moon hanging above the whole affair. The Prince wanted something akin to what royalty did amongst themselves in the world far beneath the floating continent.“M-make?” Varie wondered. How were they supposed to make the party?</p><p>The Prince’s fingers gripped cold against Varie’s shoulders. His mask pushed into their face.</p><p>“Yes, why else would I have made you out of a completely useless fool?” said the Prince.</p><p> He shoved Varie.</p><p>“Now get to work,” he said. “I want to watch.”</p><p>Varie had fallen on their side. The memory of what it felt like to land on their back caused their hands to flail and keep them from doing that at all costs. The eyes on the owl mask’s face studied them. Varie felt nothing but contempt radiate from within his soul. </p><p>“B-but, I don’t know how—to—“ Varie stuttered. </p><p>They were supposed to just…make things?</p><p>The Prince pounced. He lifted Varie up by the wheel about their neck. It was at that point that Varie realized Prince Illumis was much, much taller than any human could ever be. Their feet kicked. They could feel themselves choking. His cold fingertips dug under the wheel and into Varie’s neck.</p><p>“It comes naturally to you ophanim,” said the Prince, “Itzkeel!”</p><p>Soft hissing filled the room once more, and the seven-headed seraph pointed its empty mouths towards the Prince…from a respectful distance.</p><p>“Is this not a perfect ophan?” the Prince demanded.</p><p>Itzkeel indicated that no mistake had occurred in its judgment. Varie’s formation had been perfect. The sol nectare had taken over their spinal column and was converting their breath to ether, their blood to light. Itzkeel additionally expressed disappointment that there was no destroying or eating to be done. Why couldn’t the Prince have tried fledging a few more ophanim this go-round? Varie squirmed more and more with each of Itzkeel’s additional emanations.But I’m still human, Varie thought, even though Itzkeel disagreed.</p><p>“Then you can and shall create my party, Variel,” said the Prince, “No more of your disrespect. You do as I, the Prince of all Creation, say you do!!”</p><p>“I d—,” Varie said. The wheel pressing into their jaw made it painful to talk. They didn’t understand why they weren’t blacking out from lack of oxygen, although the dim memory of Florael’s mention that Varie didn’t need to breathe anymore surfaced somewhat. Varie’s soul bone, already overloaded from a first day of emanations, sent out warning pangs. Varie attempted to emanate to the Prince, but it was drowned by a wave of anguish.</p><p>“Make it so,” snarled the Prince, “Make the party, ophan!”</p><p>Varie acquiesced. Their vertebrae ached as though shaken into splinters. Standing was impossible, so Varie slumped into a kneeling position. They ran their fingers around their wheel. Varie knew they were taking too long to do whatever-it-was the Prince demanded of them. It was like a dream where they’d failed to study a diagram in the arts atelier. Their back ached so hard that their entire body hurt. They wheezed and tried to figure out what to do, while they felt the Prince’s glare. Itzkeel’s appetite stirred.</p><p>This was it. Varie was going to die in a flash of molten jaws.</p><p>“Your Highness, if we may interrupt,” said a familiar (and very dour) voice.</p><p>Somehow, and Varie could not figure out how, but of all people, there was the only entity who could possibly make their situation worse: The Magister of Culture. He stood in the shadows with his black wings gathered about him, with only his halfmoon glasses catching light from Itzkeel’s glow nearby. </p><p>Florael’s emanations were very flower-like, spiraling out as continuous fractal petals licking at their intended target. GOTZON had been, though as broad as the universe, very faint, whisking at Varie, as a breeze would. The Erelim were murmurs muffled by armor. Itzkeel was a choking wave of ashen air. The Prince was nothing but adamant, spiking demands, each sharper than the last. </p><p>The Magister of Culture emanated absolutely nothing.</p><p>Varie, terrified, cast emanations about for anything, some sort of response or feeling from the Magister. Their soul bone hurt, but up until that moment, they’d become used to everyone casting emanations. There wasn’t a feeling or stray thought to be found from the Magister. Nothing about him, not even his expression, revealed anything about his emotional state or personality. He tapped a document in his hands.</p><p>“The ophan Variel is not authorized to create organic matter, up to and including fruits, various foods and drinks, human-like simulacra, homunculi, et cetera,” said the Magister.</p><p>The Prince’s emotions spilled out of him. Rage, hurt, jealousy. Underneath it all, desire, sadness, a wild grasp at something else he could not have. Varie didn’t have time to process what that was, exactly, except that simply by existing, the Magister of Culture provoked it. Some of the Prince's emanations queried the Magister as to why he wasn't out stomping the dreams of mediocre human thespians from his office on the Magister's Mezzanine, but of course these emanations went un-answered.</p><p>“Not authorized?” said the Prince, reigning his temper back in to mere ‘annoyance’. “Well then, I authorize it.”</p><p>“Authorization is not granted from an outside source. An ophan goes before a council of five Magisters to authorize themself, via demonstration of abilities to create various forms of inorganic matter in lifelike shapes,” said the Magister of Culture.</p><p>“Call four of your esh friends in, then, Magister,” said the Prince. “Variel, I charge you to make inorganic matter in lifelike shapes. Authorize yourself so that they’re not kept waiting.”Varie gaped at the request. It made even less sense than the one for a party.“The ophan Variel is not authorized to create inorganic matter in lifelike shapes,” said the Magister dryly.</p><p>“And I imagine that, too, is not authorized externally?” said the Prince, and Varie could feel his emanations grow sharper, hungrier.</p><p>“It requires self-authorization of inorganic matter in non-lifelike shapes.” The Magister didn't <i>need</i> to be so blunt...But it suited him.</p><p>“I…I’m the Prince of All Creation!” Prince Illumis II bellowed. “This is needlessly complicated. I made an ophan. Now that ophan creates for <i>me</i>.”</p><p>“Yes, according to available authorization. Complaints about this process go directly to the Empress, your Highness,” said the Magister, “If desired, we will assist Your Highness with the paperwork.”</p><p>“Then what can my ophan create? I’ll take that,” said Illumis.</p><p>The Magister responded, “Variel is currently authorized to create an object containing no more than one dimension, numbering no more than one, and not expressing any sensory input, up to and including vision, smell, touch, taste…”</p><p>Itzkeel hissed and pressed against the wall, far away from the two arguing angels. The seraph, and seraphim in general, disliked arguments that could not be settled by eating one party or the other.</p><p>“But that’s not even anything at all!” was the last that Varie heard from Illumis. The erelim had stepped forward. The two armored angels knelt by Varie. The erel from House Illumis emanated quiet shame on behalf of the Prince. The other erel, of House Lukael, offered its arms.  Varie allowed themself to be hoisted into the crooks of the first erel’s elbows. Varie curled up against a cold cuirass while their robe draped over its forearms. The erelim escorted Varie out of the Chateau this way, into the night.</p><p>Behind them, the argument unfolded into facets of the Empress’s law that would have made a metaphysical theologist’s toes curl.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Power to the Paperwork</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>One thing I worry about is that Varie isn't particularly proactive in this chapter or the preceding one. Someday I'll be more disciplined in terms of character agency but for now just gonna write about my character being shacked up in a library with fancy bedding and nice drinks. I DESERVE IT.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If there were any public qualms about where an ophan was to be kept out of reach from an all-powerful and all-knowing Prince of All Creation, the house of the eshim settled them by filing their paperwork the fastest. They were known for the speed of their quills. Their blackened feathers called to mind inkstains, edits,  redactions. The manor of the eshim existed underground in a vast labyrinth where every wall and hallway was lined by bookshelves. They lived communally and rested in concealed niches and passageways, but none owned any one room. No emanations broached its walls, neither in nor out. Not even the call of a chayot could pierce the boundary.</p><p>The ophanic manor didn’t have those protections, with its open windows and airy cloisters. Though the cherubim grieved to see the celestial house empty once more, the eshim indicated in the various clauses of their writing that someday the ophan Variel would be permitted to take up residence there again. It depended on secondly on Varie’s will to return, and firstly their ability to survive a chayot’s attention. Copies of each of these contracts were left on a table next to Varie’s new nest, along with a quill and bottle of ink. Varie was instructed by a black-feathered woman to make corrections and file an appeal if anything in the contract did not suit. The papers were all addressed to ‘Variel’, the same name that Florael called them, the name that Prince Illumis had used as well. </p><p>It wasn’t like Varie could sit upright in order to sign them, either. A slow, dull ache lay Varie flat for the entire morning. Their own vertebra scraped against its fellows with every movement, no matter how small. They lay on their side watching the fireplace flicker. A hooded esh told Varie not to move if they could help it, at least for the day. The esh supplied Varie with another blanket and tucked more pillows in, bowing, then leaving quietly.</p><p>Eshim drifted in and out of Varie’s resting space during the day, all clad in black robes. To a person each one glanced at the paperwork to see if anything had been altered, but otherwise left both Varie and the objects in their vicinity alone. In spite of the eshim wandering through in a consistent hunt for particular books, their trespassing felt impersonal. Each one wore a long black robe with the hood either up or down. They all had onyx haloes hovering overhead.</p><p>“To the ophan Variel: we hope the stay in our house finds you well.”</p><p>“Yeah it’s, it’s nice, thanks,” said Varie, who couldn’t put their finger on why the environment was so calming.</p><p>A full group of three eshim carried in a bundle wrapped in blankets. The faintest emanation from within the bundle away made Varie realize: Not one of the eshim emanated. Until Varie spotted one entering the room, there was no way to sense their location, what they were thinking, nothing. </p><p>“Allow us to share a drink,” said one of them. He spread bowls. Into each one, he poured a substance that glowed as fiercely as the sun.</p><p>“Wait, that’s…” said Varie, remembering the sol nectare and how it had obliterated their lucidity.</p><p>The rest of the eshim each took their own bowls and began to drink. They still weren’t emanating, but Varie could feel the peer pressure. Varie took their bowl and braced themself for a night they’d remember as mostly a dream. The sol nectare slid down their throat and curled against their spine, warming it. Varie breathed a shuddering sigh of relief. The pain had been so persistent, they’d just gotten used to it. </p><p>“Wow,” said Varie, completely lucid. They gulped and tried to push the stray thought away that they weren’t entirely human, and that was why they reacted to the substance differently.</p><p><i>Of course I’m still human</i>, Varie thought bitterly. Maybe it wasn’t the same sol nectare as before. Yeah. That could be it.</p><p>“We have brought an esteemed malakh in to mend the wound wrought by the Prince,” said an esh to Varie’s right. “This will hurt, at first, so brace yourself, Variel.”</p><p>She unwrapped the bundle with the help of the other two eshim, revealing a floating mandala of gemstones and dewdrops. It unfolded into a constantly-shifting kaleidoscopic pattern over the table. Its song emanated out, icy and distant. The eyes of the eshim reflected its blue light. This thing, though composed of minerals and abstract patterns, was also an angel: a malakh.</p><p>To Varie, the song of the malakh felt like the Prince had stabbed them in the soul bone all over again. The tones raked through their spinal cord and illuminated every bone in their body with light. Varie saw stars, the vast reaches of outer space, and a great rift there full of fires in every color. Varie was torn apart to the bitter molecule and atom. There was nothing but pain, and that song.</p><p>Atoms recombined. Cells re-formed. Flesh merged to flesh, and strapped itself to bone. Each action snapped together. As the song continued, rivulets of numbness spread through, starting from the tips of Varie’s extremities and traveling up their neurons, into their body’s core. Like someone had poured their body back into place, Varie twitched each returning sense, hesitant at first to emanate but then realizing: That didn’t hurt anymore.</p><p>“Oh, Empress,” Varie cried in relief. The malakh dangled before them and flickered. Its song indicated that it was glad to have helped, but the 39 other malakhim needed it back near the Bat Nebula to help heal the Empress’s wound. Varie learned that the big rift in the deepest reaches of the universe was what the malakhim usually hung around, singing to seal it shut.</p><p>“Thank you, malakh,” said one of the esh.</p><p>The malakh flashed blue, emanating its happiness to not only see, but actively help, an ophan, but it did have a bigger obligation for the century. It vanished.</p><p>“It didn’t hurt,” said Varie, “I mean, its emanation…The other thing, it hurt.”</p><p>“You are healed now,” said one of the esh. “You should be able to walk and communicate with the other winged again. The ophan Variel took a chayot’s emanation directly. It could have killed.”</p><p>Chayot. “The Prince?” said Varie.</p><p>The eshim all nodded. “His emanations are strong. They are intended to reach all of us, across all houses, if needed. When it is directed to one individual, it is too strong to bear.”Another esh piped up. “We are very, very angry that this happened.”</p><p>“We understand his impatience. We have been without a fortieth ophan for 64000 years,” said the third, shaking their head. Their hood fell about their features. “We hope, if it pleases the ophan Variel to stay, we can keep hidden until the Prince’s fixation fades.”</p><p>“Master Lukael is making sure the chayot’s appeal will take a very long time,” said the first esh. “He found extra forms to file on the subject this morning.”</p><p>“Ah,” said the second, “The thought almost makes us laugh.”</p><p>The eshim did not, in fact, laugh, or even crack smiles.</p><p>“Lukael…who is he?” said Varie.</p><p>The eshim glanced at each other to pass on the responsibility, before one explained, “Master Lukael is nothing more than an exemplary esh. One of our best.”</p><p>The eshim remained sitting around Varie to answer the rest of their questions. They didn’t indicate any sort of emotional response, neither facial expression nor emanation, but raw information was their reason to exist, and they explained. They sipped at their own bowls of sol nectare. Varie could only assume they enjoyed themselves. There was no way to know for sure.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Preening :Y</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Florael scores some gossip about her favorite angel, Lukael. It's mean gossip, but honestly somewhat true. She doesn't murder anyone over it...yet.</p><p>Meanwhile, Varie wakes up with a weird bump on their back, and kinky wing massage stuff ensues. (Angels take good circulation very seriously, apparently!) A familiar threat presents itself at the end.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Mild body horror re: glands, feather oil, preening kinkiness.</p><p>This isn't so much of a warning as it is an advertisement, considering a couple of commenters have noted that they clicked on this story for the body horror/wingfic stuff and there hasn't...been any yet.</p><p>Essentially...</p><p>Me: I'm going to write super kinky wingfic debauchery!</p><p>Also me: (16 chapters of angel gobbledegook later)...what? stop looking at me like that</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Florael crept through the rafters of the house of cherubim. Far below, members of her chorus lay sprawled across chaise lounges. They had nothing better to do all day than practice their singing and gab to each other. Choir practice was over.</p><p>A cherub could look like any sort of amalgam of creatures. Florael spied on one, who had three heads (sheep, eagle, rook)  legs from all three animals poking out everywhere, and six wings. His friends were a quadrupedal secretary bird with a human face, and a lady with eyes lining her wings and the lower half of a shark instead of legs. They were sharing cups of sol nectare with each other.</p><p>Florael intended to do a sweep of the entire building for gossip. Like any of her kind, Florael lived and died by news and the spreading of it. Florael did a double-take when she thought she heard the name ‘Variel’, so she paused overhead and pressed herself close to the timber above.</p><p>The cherubim discussed Variel, and Variel’s prospects.</p><p>“I wonder if I should court that ophan for my sefirah? Do you think it’s worth the time, what with the chayot’s bid?” said the sheep-head on the first cherub.</p><p>“I mean go ahead,” said the second cherub, blinking long eyelashes while she had her talons trimmed by a human assistant. “Lukael put in a bid. You couldn’t possibly do any worse than him.”</p><p>“It’s probably a formality,” said the third cherub, “I don’t think a natal chart compatibility outweighs a chayot’s command. But if Lukael’s actually trying, I mean, any sefirah would benefit from an ophan. I wouldn’t blame him for taking a stab at it.”</p><p>“Please, it would take a natal chart <i>and</i> he’d need to be chayot to stand a chance. Have you read his ‘poetry’? It’s like reading an instruction manual,” said the second cherub.</p><p>“Wait he has poetry out? Who got it?” </p><p>“Oh, this seraph I know. Lukael courted a bunch of seraphim for awhile. Not sure why. He kept offering to ‘file paperwork’ for my friend. They weren’t having it.”</p><p>“Is that what happened? I’d heard he was awkward, but I had no idea how awkward,” said the first cherub. </p><p>Florael dug her claws into the timber of the ceiling frame and pinned her tail under her own body to keep it from lashing. Lukael headed Florael’s sefirah; she was its resident cherub. She wanted to leap down and challenge all the gossiping winged folk to a fight, but she knew her sefirah wouldn’t approve.</p><p>Florael tucked her wings under and loped off through the rafters. Best to stick to the shadows, as Lukael had taught her.</p><p>“Just esh things!” the second cherub crowed, and all three laughed.</p><p>*~*~*</p><p>Varie had taken great advantage and joy in being able to walk again. They’d spent the rest of their day exploring the labyrinthine library, winding up in a room with cascading waterfalls leading into indoor ponds full of archerfish. They awoke to the sounds of running water and the feel of blankets brought in by the eshim…and an itch in the small of their back.</p><p>They scratched, and found a bump protruding from their skin, just above their hips, but below their soul bone. Varie took a deep breath and assumed it to be a zit. The clear fluid that came out of it seemed zit-like enough. </p><p>An esh strolled into the room and presented a paper and quill. “Ophan Variel, we wish to re-confirm your will to exist in our house.”</p><p>“Yes, thank you,” said Varie. They dipped the quill into the ink bottle and signed the paper where indicated. The esh picked it up to look it over.</p><p>“Hmm, this signature lacks the ‘l’,” said the esh, who put the paper back on the tile.</p><p>“That’s my name, though,” said Varie.</p><p>“It is not. This ophan’s paperwork is filed under ‘Vari-EL,” said the esh. “This must be signed correctly, or else we cannot shelter this ophan.”</p><p>Varie bit their lip, studying the contract. They brushed their hair around their ear, then tugged on their own collar. On the one hand, this wasn’t their name. They weren’t ‘Variel’. They were <i>Varie</i>.</p><p>On the other, did it really matter? Varie knew they were Varie. If others new them as ‘Variel’, so what? How much did one signature matter in the scheme of things?</p><p>Still, Varie hesitated to grace their own name with the foreign letter. Varie did it as quickly as possible to stop themself from overthinking it. They gave the quill back to the esh, who checked the signature and nodded. The esh then procured a cup of sol nectare for Varie, and a cup for herself. She seated herself on one of the steps in the room overlooking the various ponds. Her wings draped over shoulders. Together, she and Varie looked similar enough in their black robes of the same cut, except Varie had the collar and scruffy mop of blond hair.</p><p>“If we must guess, we would say the new name has not been accepted by the ophan,” the esh said.</p><p>“I…I’m Varie,” said Varie in a sigh, “That’s who I am.”</p><p>The name was a common enough one in Wiloma’s region, applied to any gender. Varie figured they had plenty of ancestors and relatives who’d borne the name too. There wasn't anything special or unique about it. It was simply their name.</p><p>“We regret to inform this ophan that Varie is not their name. It is Variel as of fledging,” said the esh. “Variel is in the records.  Varie is not in the records.”</p><p>Varie looked at their cup and took a sip. ‘Variel’ still meant nothing to them. The itch had returned to the small of their back, so they scratched away rather than continue the conversation about names. The esh leaned back and peeked at what Varie was doing.</p><p>“Ah. That’s something that should be done in private,” she said, and then she elaborated. Varie blushed. To their mortification, the little bump was a gland, normally hidden by wings. It seeped oil meant for sealing feathers and nudging them back into place. Varie needed to be preened, or else the gland could become inflamed.</p><p>“That’s disgusting,” said Varie, horrified.</p><p>“It is evidence that the fledging took, and not only that, it took well,” said the esh. ”Variel is meant to be among us. Come. Without sefirah, we must go to our preening chamber.”</p><p>The esh invited Varie on a walk through book-lined corridors, to this 'preening chamber'. Varie walked with her, and wished they could just scrape the bump off their own back with a knife. It didn’t feel right, even if it wasn’t itching. Still, Varie kept the esh’s warning in mind and refrained from touching it. It itched more and more while they walked.</p><p>The preening chamber caused a hitch in Varie’s throat, for they had definitely seen something like it before. How long had it been since that first salon, where who was it…Enzo! He’d tricked Varie into walking into a room just like this. The cherub Poyel had sat there, wingless attendants stroking his wings. Varie tallied the number of days in their head. <i>Empress</i>. That salon couldn’t have happened more than a month ago. Already it felt like Varie had existed in this place for a lifetime, if not several years.</p><p>Varie’s esh escort bid them farewell and left.</p><p>The room itself was draped with silks and other fineries, meant for soothing the winged as they reclined. The attendants looked human enough, lacking wings or halos, but they spoke and smiled uncannily. They guided Varie over to take a seat on a cushion. The attendants were adorned with laces and jewels. For some reason, they reminded Varie of fresco paintings: Idealized humans, with perfect proportion, drawn from reference, but not actually human. The attendants drew silken curtains to form a closed-off space within the chamber for Variel’s privacy.</p><p>Since Varie didn’t have anything in the way of feathers, the preening initially felt more like a light massage. Their hands lightly coasted around Varie’s back, touching the skin here and there to check for quills.</p><p>“…Quills,” said Varie, as soon as the subject was mentioned. </p><p>“When your feathers come in,” said the attendant, “They’re covered in little sheaths, so they can poke through the skin, like needles.”</p><p>Varie buried their face under their knuckles. They held back a scream. Their back itched at the very thought of the quills emerging. The attendants, possibly sensing Varie’s sensitivity or concluding that it was too early for quills to start growing in, turned their talk to improving circulation with a firmer massage. Varie’s panic faded into the more confident pressure of fingers and palms on their muscles, particularly their shoulders. One of the attendants buffed their collar.</p><p>The attendants convinced Varie to lie face-down. Varie would later wonder how their own grievances had been disarmed so effectively, but for the moment, they were happy to rest their body against an assortment of fine cotton sheets and pillows. The talk of quills floated into the distance while the attendants worked through Varie's massage instead. Their breathing slowed and they closed their eyes.</p><p>Some time later, one of the attendants tapped Varie’s shoulder and asked if they were ready for a ‘draining’. Varie shrugged and responded, “Sure.” Moments later, Varie yelped from a sudden, sharp squeeze.</p><p>The attendant had meant the preening gland, and were deeply apologetic for not explaining more clearly. They knelt and bowed for forgiveness.</p><p>“No, no, it’s, it’s fine,” said Varie. “Please get up.”</p><p>The attendant crept to their feet and gave Varie one last bow before stepping out of the silk-enclosed enclave. At that moment, Varie spotted the silhouette of another winged person, shrouded by their own wall of silk and clearly being tended in the same way by a different set of attendants.</p><p>“That’s that, O ophan,” said one of the remaining attendants, “You’re free.” He wiped his hands free of oil on a cloth.</p><p>Varie winced at the ‘O ophan’, but…They did feel a lot better. More human. They felt their own heartbeat and the memory of skin pressing against their own. The thought of feathers and glands seemed very far away, especially since they felt their own back and couldn’t find any hint of the lump left over. The skin was smooth and flat there.</p><p>“Thank you,” said Varie.</p><p>“Our pleasure,” said the remaining attendants in unison, bowing. "Please return tomorrow."</p><p>Varie wobbled to their feet. They were going to be okay! They barely caught the movement of wings and silks sweeping behind them as they left the preening chamber. Varie made it halfway down the hallway when they heard the voice behind them:</p><p>"Ophan Variel. We offer a moment of our time."</p><p>Black-winged, grim-faced, and freshly preened, the Magister of Culture beckoned.</p>
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<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Sefirot</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The Magister of Culture requests something peculiar of Varie in secret. In so doing, he reveals an escape route back to the world below.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm not overly fond of writing conversation-heavy chapters, but I hope the intrigue and some noodling about angelic social constructs is fun to read anyway. We're about due for some action soon. If I can swing it for the next chapter, I will.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“The soul bone, and, by extension, the wings are the locus of one’s power,” said the Magister, “They must be preened on a daily basis, organized, and kept free of parasites or ingrown feathers. The skin and flesh must be kept well-circulated.”</p><p>Varie followed the Magister up a corridor lined with checkerboard marble squares. The golden glow of the room ahead caused the Magister’s shadow to stretch long and dark behind him. Just quieter than the Magister’s lecture, Varie could hear water running. The corridor was narrow and Varie walked kitty-corner to the Magister, somewhat behind him. This allowed Varie to take in black feathers so neat, they were almost a geometric tessellation. They smelled sunshine and dust.</p><p>“Only with proper care will an ophan fulfill their duty as engineer of illusions-as-reality,” said the Magister. </p><p>The Magister paused at the end of the hallway and permitted Varie to walk ahead. To Varie’s surprise, the corridor opened into a familiar gilded room, and never had Varie been so confused to see that overworked mermaid fountain spouting water next to sculpted griffins. Doorways to various Magistrate offices surrounded the fountain. Their feet suddenly felt heavy.</p><p>“What is…what is this,” said Varie, “Is this the Magister’s Mezzanine?”</p><p>The Magister of Culture’s office door opened on its own.</p><p>“We understand this is not a fondly-remembered place,” he said. The Magister’s presence alone behind Varie inspired them to walk swiftly towards the open door. He didn’t emanate, but there was something about his sheer presence that intimidated Varie into continuing their walk together.</p><p>Varie’s next thought: <i>Does that mean the staircase is still here?</i> And when Varie looked…</p><p>Yes. Yes it was. Ivory bannisters, gilded leaf sculptures and all.</p><p>Varie stepped into the Magister’s office. If the staircase was still there, that meant their guild still existed, down below, that meant Archimedo probably puttered around like always, that meant…</p><p>
  <i>There was a way back to the world below.</i>
</p><p>Someone else sat at the Magister’s desk. They sat up with a half-shriek upon noticing Varie. They catapulted off the chair and threw themself at Varie’s feet, speaking so fast that Varie couldn’t tell what they were saying. They had black hair and an onyx halo hovering over their head. Their robe indicated their status as an esh, but their back was completely bare, wingless. </p><p>“Forgive this very young esh,” said the Magister of Culture. He extended a single wing like a wall of feathers between Varie and the supplicating esh. Varie was mesmerized by the wing’s pinions and secondaries, how easily they slid open and spread, the sheen of iridescence marking each one. The Magister spoke very gently with the esh that it was time for them to take a break.</p><p>“Apha. We understand this reaction. It is still our collective responsibility to stifle praise of a visiting ophan until it is requested,” said the Magister.</p><p>With that, he offered his hand to the wingless esh, and they rose to their feet. Apologizing, Apha scampered around the Magister and out the door. Varie could hear their footsteps fade down the hallway outside.</p><p>“They had no wings,” said Varie.</p><p>“Apha was fledged recently. They train to someday replace us,” said the Magister. He’d folded his wing against his back once more and taken over the seat of his desk. It was a backless chair to allow his wings to drape down unimpeded. </p><p>“We are closing the door so as to become somewhat personal; does this please the ophan Variel?”</p><p>“Uh,” said Varie. </p><p>“We humbly offer our assistance,” the Magister said. “None arrive in the Empress’s country fully understanding what has happened to them, or what is to come.”</p><p>Varie took deep breaths. Staircase outside, right there, offering the path out. The way Apha had been treated. The idea that there were others fledged, in the same state as Varie. The Magister seated at his desk, gazing steadily upon them over halfmoon glasses. </p><p>“Okay, I’ll…hear you out,” said Varie.</p><p>The door closed. Varie watched the Magister’s halo lower into his outstretched hand. It formed itself into a bracelet of dark stone around his wrist, threaded with white layers. Varie’s eyes traveled up his bared arm. Clearly he hadn’t been out in the sun for years, decades, centuries? However long he’d existed as a winged man. Varie could make out a vein traveling up well-formed musculature. Clearly he didn’t spend all of his time behind a desk.</p><p>The Magister’s face was as long as doomy as usual, of course. A nonexpressive frown refused to change into anything else.</p><p>“Thank you, Variel. I now speak on behalf of myself only,” he said in the same tone as usual. “Are you aware of your obligation to join a sefirah?”</p><p>Varie blushed. It was a word that they’d sometimes heard the other esh whisper, but they’d decided not to inquire about it. It just seemed icky. Varie held the same distaste for concepts like 'family' and 'relationships'. “No.”</p><p>“Hm.” The Magister looked away, to the window. “A sefirah is a minor house within the major angelic houses. It can hold up to eleven individuals, but only one from each major house.</p><p>“Apha, for example, is not part of a sefirah, not yet. They will have to court the heads of the sefirot to which they hope to belong, until they find one willing to take them in as their esh. </p><p>“Within the eshim, we welcomed eight fledges, including Apha. They will study together and learn from each other. They have esh masters who will instruct and condition them into being attractive for the heads of the sephirot.”</p><p>The Magister paused. He slowly returned his gaze to errant paperwork on his desk, and picked up a feather quill. Rather than writing, he groomed the quill.</p><p>“You must have realized, being one of only forty ophanim, that you will enjoy no such assistance, and your relationship to the sephirot is very different.”</p><p>Varie crossed their arms. They didn’t like anything that they heard, but at the same time, the Magister gave them nothing to bear against him, specifically.</p><p>“Hm,” said the Magister, when he realized Varie had no response for him. “Variel, hundreds of sephirot are without an ophan. They are going to court you to join them. Their expectations are very high. They may not understand how much time it takes for an ophan to come into their own. If you disappoint one with your current lack of ophanic ability, it could result in your decommission, which is detrimental to the maintenance of our reality.”</p><p>“What does ‘decommission’ mean,” said Variel.</p><p>The Magister tapped his quill against the desk.</p><p>“It means precisely what you think it means. I fear for your safety, Variel. It would be easiest to ask that you temporarily join my sefirah, at least until you have a greater understanding of what you are.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. In the Jaws of a Dog</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Prince Illumis II shows off how very little prowess he has for mental and emotional health management among members of his sefirah. Readers: This is an unfortunate skill to be lacking, if one is a chayot.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter is a little bit late because I was midway writing a different take on this part of the story, when this struck me as a better setup for the concepts I want to lead Varie through next. </p><p>The good news is, a little bit of delay here means next chapter might come a bit faster, unless I discard it a second time for something with a clearer arc (again). And I think a few of us appreciate Illumis shenanigans so hopefully this is still entertaining.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Prince Illumis II’s throne for the day was carved in the shape of an open dog’s mouth, barking to the sun. It rose in the middle of a great white desert, and the sky was filled with lavender petals instead of clouds. The ophanim did not honor every request the chayot emanated, but changing up his throne room every now and then didn’t distract from their obligations as much as creating entirely new things would. The Prince perched within the metal dog’s maw. His heel wedged between the dog’s canines, and he draped his arm around the dog’s ear. His four wings extended behind him and caught the light in their silks.</p><p>Today, he hated the eshim. It changed from day to day or week to week, but today was the day to think angrily of those inky wings and scratching quills. An entire house devoted to hiding from his view, from all others in the sefirot, too. If the ophanim weren’t so stern about preserving their domain of secrets, the Prince would have retrofitted them to some other purpose. Even his own esh, in his own sefirah, never fully coughed up intel. It was even worse now that there was a conflict of interests.</p><p>Semalion, the Prince’s cherub, approached from across the dunes, bearing a silver trumpet. Semalion looked a bit like a winged centaur, if the horse half were a lion instead. The cherub had three serpent’s tails and two bird’s heads. No one questioned how the trumpet played when lifted to a beak. Presumably the completely normal human hands and fingers Semalion possessed covered for other anatomical inaccuracies.</p><p>The Prince listened to Semalion’s tune: a simple, earnest hymn. Semalion could do more complex things with his music, but the Prince didn’t care for things he didn’t understand. Especially not today. Not when he was mad at the very concept of ‘secrets’ itself.</p><p>“That’s enough,” he said, and Semalion clipped the trumpet to the straps of his saddle. “What do you need?” the Prince asked next.</p><p>“Your Highness, bright and all-knowing, I bear the morning news: the house of bene elohim have been granted a renovation by the ophanim.” The cherub was kneeling and bowing.</p><p>“Why should I care?” said the Prince. He figured, the cherub very well knew how many cherubim could take its place in the Prince’s sefirah. The answer needed to be good. The Prince despised ambiguous news. He also had no particular fondness for the bene elohim, though it behooved him to have one in his sefirah. They found it so hard to stay <i>pure</i> enough for the Prince's tastes. They drifted so easily from sefirah to sefirah.</p><p>“They’re creating a passageway connecting to the house of eshim, Your Highness. Their paperwork came through faster than yours. Obviously they took their notes from the eshim, and improved upon them. The ophan is to take mutual, temporary residence between the two houses.”</p><p>“Oh, that is news!” said the Prince. “The bene elohim, ha? Well, good thing I have one of those. Semalion, draw me a summoning circle.”</p><p>Semalion bowed, and knelt on lion’s knees. It drew connecting lines, scripts in the sand, ending with a name: Xor. Then Semalion stood back and covered his ears against the impending chayot emanation.</p><p>“Xor!” the Prince barked into the flower-filled sky. </p><p>The force of his call and emanation caused flower petals to sizzle into nothingness. High above, an enormous crescent moon revealed itself. Below, the summoning circle’s lines turned molten red, and a screaming humanoid shape appeared in its center. The design in the sand cooled to glass and the human who stood there had very clearly recently been fledged, for her lack of wings. Before she could solidify into her normal form, she suddenly turned into a perfect copy of Semalion, from his lion’s toes to his double-beaked face, only lacking the silver trumpet on her person.</p><p>“Bene eloah Xor, your house has formed a truce with the house of eshim?” the Prince asked the crying, shuddering copy of Semalion.</p><p>“I, I don’t know, wh-what am I?” the bene eloah wailed. She looked at her hands, not recognizing them. She felt around at her beaks and could not comprehend them.</p><p>“Empress, child, this can’t be the first time you’ve taken the shape of a cherub,” sighed the Prince, “They’re everywhere. I could punch randomly and hit a cherub without even trying.”</p><p>Semalion emanated something akin to a chuckle, and lifted its trumpet to play. The song cut through the bene eloah’s distress and made the petals rise up and dance once more, a floral blizzard in the sky above. The Prince had been on the balls of his feet, as if to reprimand Xor, but the song distracted him from issuing another command. He leaned back in his dog’s head throne and allowed Semalion’s song to wind down.</p><p>“Anyway,” said the Prince, “Xor, I want you to meet the ophan being hidden from me in the house of eshim. Do your bene eloah thing. I may have more requests that I’ll yell at you later. Dismissed.”</p><p>He snapped his fingers. Xor vanished in a puff of sand.  The Prince turned his mask towards Semalion, who indicated he was ready to share more news, should the Prince desire a more complete run-down of the day’s events.</p><p>“No, Semalion, I want to be actually entertained, not sit through another boring song,” said the Prince. “Itzkeel, if you don’t mind.”</p><p>Hissing rose from beneath Semalion’s paws. Before the cherub could flap its wings even once, dunes rose in a circle around it. Sand fell off of blistering scales. Seven great heads uncoiled. Wings unfurled. Empty mouths and eyes gaped open. Hungry.</p><p>The Prince could always find another cherub for his sefirah.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0019"><h2>19. Sefirot 101</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie hits the books and doesn't like what they find. At all.</p><p>Or maybe...they actually really like it...hmmm!</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter was tough. I had to rewrite it a couple of times. I think (?) this is the cadence I want for it going forward, at least as plot/schmoop scaffolding for the rest of the first draft. I appreciate the patience of my readers if this is a bit of an info dump. Hopefully it is still interesting to read on a conceptual level. The earlier tries at this were revealing much different information but it really felt distracting, so I had to trim it all back and think really hard about it and try to focus and narrow down and etc.</p><p>There's a social cringe at the end too. I LIKE the cringe as part of kink exploration but I understand it needs a bit of warning for more sensitive readers.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Magister loaded Varie up with an exhaustive historical reading list on vellum. A pamphlet with illustrations of wing anatomy and the different care requirements at each stage of transformation. Charts upon charts describing winged hierarchical terms and courtly etiquette. Brief, terrifying mentions of tutors and mentors, which Varie immediately insisted they wouldn’t need, it was too much trouble. Verbal directions to the main library, which, the Magister assured Varie, had plenty of extra study material at Varie’s beck and call.</p><p>“But I thought you were inviting me into this sefirah thing,” said Varie, “For my safety or whatever.”</p><p>“Belonging to any sefirah means understanding how to preen other individuals, so we suggest starting with wing structures and how those change when sefirot adopt new members,” droned the Magister, in spite of Varie’s ears and cheeks turning steadily more red, “After that, proceed to the etiquette manual, and perhaps alternate with chapters from courtship documentation. The newly fledged frequently confuse the latter as something else entirely. It causes painful misunderstandings.”</p><p>And then Varie realized: They would <i>never</i> want to ask the Magister for specifics on this stuff. He was doing Varie a genuine kindness by assigning homework.</p><p>On the way out of his office, Varie, lugging all sorts of documentation, looked at the staircase. It was just there, completely unguarded.</p><p>The Magister stared at Varie from his desk, over his halfmoon glasses. Expressionless.</p><p>Varie tore their gaze away and fled the mezzanine. Soon the sound of rustling water was far behind them, replaced by the pounding of their feet and heart. Was it just Varie, or could the Magister tell they wanted to run down that staircase? </p><p>Nonsense. The eshim didn’t emanate. It was Varie’s imagination.</p><p>Varie followed the esh’s directions until they ended up in the vast library with bookshelves built into every spare surface, including the staircase, the furniture, the clock, and the flooring. The woody-leather-dust scent hung with the dust motes dancing against candle- and firelight. It reminded Varie of how the Magister’s wings had smelled. The flash of his arm musculature in one of his long sleeves intruded on their thoughts.</p><p>They were certain they’d dropped some things on the way up here, away from the Magister and his office and his stupid bare arm. Varie spread the documents out and sorted through them. Everything was written in neat, tiny script. The wing structure diagrams nauseated Varie, so they shuffled those to the bottom of the stack. </p><p>A passing esh noticed the chaos, and stopped to help Varie set up a reading wheel. Seven shelves, each bearing an open book, could be rotated through for faster cross-referencing. It looked a bit like a waterwheel, all things considered, and squeaked its hinges when moved. This would have helped immensely, had Varie been the type to study this way. Somehow, setting up all the required reading on that wheel made it seem like even more work than before. </p><p>“Thank you,” said Varie to the anonymous esh, who bowed and left. </p><p>The esh’s wings were black, as usual, but it was a matte finish. The Magister’s wings caught the light differently, reflecting it back in muted flashes of color. Varie squeaked through the books on the wheel to distract their poor stupid brain, again, away from the subject of the Magister, and came to the sad conclusion that of the books that had been assigned by him, the one on wing anatomy was the shortest, and contained the most diagrams interspersed with the text.</p><p>Varie checked the table of contents and skipped both ‘fledging’ and ’wing development’ entirely. While the charts depicting the structural differences between the wings of different major houses seemed interesting from an artistic perspective, Varie had little to no inspiration for painting or drawing. All things considered they were doing their best, and the enormity of their flagrantly discarded artistic career was the least of Varie’s worries. Varie skipped those sections too, except for the last part, which detailed the different ways that feathers within sefirot interacted.</p><p>And that lead right back to the Magister, damn him. The head of a sefirah would insert one of their feathers into the wing of the new member, causing it to take on physical qualities of both major angelic houses. The first example was an esh’s black feather and how it would darken the vibrant hues of a cherub’s wing, and sculpt the pinions into being more corvid-like. Varie thought about the sheen on the Magister’s wings, again, and how they couldn’t recall seeing any other eshim with that sort of finish to their feathers.</p><p>The Magister’s wings must have contained the feather from another house, but which one? Varie scanned through the sefirah charts, knowing in their heart exactly which house, but not wanting to acknowledge it. It was something Varie had observed for themself multiple times. Through silken-covered, quadruple wings, a reflected rainbow had shone.</p><p>That sheen belonged to chayot, like Prince Illumis.</p><p>Varie pieced it together as well as they could. The Magister had acted awfully familiar with the Prince, almost like he was in charge. But if the Magister had taken the Prince’s feather into his wing, didn’t that mean he was in the Prince’s sefirah? Did the Magister even have authority to invite others in? Or was the Magister secretly in charge? Then why wasn't the chayot's wings more like the Magister's, instead of vice versa?</p><p>Varie didn’t want to be in Illumis’s sefirah. Maybe Varie didn’t want to be in anyone’s sefirah. Maybe they just wanted to run back to Wiloma and pretend none of this had ever happened.</p><p>Varie was interrupted from another doom spiral by a cheerful “Hi there!” out of nowhere.</p><p>Florael hopped up onto the reading shelf. The wheel squeaked but didn’t move under her weight. She flicked her tail and smiled at Varie. She wore a little cloak tailored for a kitty body, and it covered her wings, too. Florael parked her butt on the book and curled her tail around her paws.</p><p>“Just thought I’d check in on you, heh!” said Florael, grinning so widely that Varie thought she looked apologetic. “You’re aware that you’re like, emanating <i>all over the place</i>, right?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. Eshwoven Secrets</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Florael has a gift, and a certain amount of information, for Varie. But not enough information for Varie to fully piece together what's going on in the background.</p><p>The ophanim also have some renovations to do on the house of eshim, and they're not obligated to warn anybody upfront.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This chapter was tough because I feel like there are too many conversational/expositional chapters in a row, so the least I could do is rewrite it to include a more interesting setting. And by more interesting I mean, what if...labyrinth of filing cabinets? That's super interesting!! I'll be honest, if I were in this story I'd probably be an esh, tbh, just because I think astral officework is so compelling. I swear we're almost done developing the house of eshim enough for the story to make sense, heh.</p><p>Thank you to all my readers for continuing to read. If you're lurking that's ok too. I welcome comments on both new chapters and old chapters if you feel like reaching out about this story.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Florael leeeeaned against Varie’s leg and suggested they head towards the Hall of Filing. She struggled to indicate what about the Hall of Filing might be interesting to Varie. It was, after all, a vast hallway of interconnected cells, lined with cabinets for, well, filing documentation. </p><p>Together, they ducked into one of the cells, and Varie took a deep breath to keep their balance. It smelled like dust and ink in there. Unbidden, Varie found themself thinking about the Magister again, how he smelled, and they hated the thought. Every boring little detail they spotted seemed so much like him, from the bland, brutal organization down to the neatly-lettered lists sealed to each drawer, indicating its contents. Cell after cell of this existed in the house of eshim. Varie stepped into one cell devoted to the organization of documentation beginning with ‘G’ pertaining to the year 1516. The door closed behind them, guided shut by a little paw. Florael gave Varie about two moments of complete silence. </p><p>Then—</p><p>“So. The Magister, huh,” said Florael. </p><p>Varie’s breath caught. The adrenaline was like a spike lancing right down their spine. Why did their body suddenly find the word <i>’Magister’</i> so exciting?</p><p>“Heh. It makes sense,” Florael said. She had a little satchel on her back, tied up with a bow. “You’re in a weird situation. He’s the only person you recognize from the human world.”</p><p>“But he’s old,” said Varie, more for themself than for Florael. Just saying that helped kill the buzz. </p><p>“Yeah, 140 is like, super ancient,” said the 1623-year-old cherub.</p><p>“Sorry,” said Varie, rolling around the sheer length of time in their head. The magister was one century old, and over a quarter of the next. Much older than Varie had expected. Almost all of the art produced from the period referenced the Great Protestation, a war where humanity forced the winged to sign treaties and respect their free will. The Magister had seen that war, from its beginning to its end, had likely even been fledged during it.</p><p>Varie couldn’t figure out why that, too, appealed to them.</p><p>“Can you help me out of this so I can emanate something?” said Florael, “The eshim don’t usually let us cherubim in. For good reason. We’re pretty gossipy, and the eshim are pretty secretive. But in here, the walls are lined with eshweave, so I can emanate as loud as I want without bugging them.”</p><p>Varie knelt and undid the cherub’s cloak. She shook her leg to rid herself of it.</p><p>Florael’s emanation seemed like a giggle. She then expressed the thought that normally, Varie would be grouped with other fledged so that they’d have more of the same experiences together. Florael emanated what she’d seen just that day, of the fledgelings gathered around a table, sharing books and sol nectare. They all wore the open-backed robes, but none had feathers at all. Varie suddenly ached for the friendship they could sense between the individuals.</p><p>“Why can’t I be with them?” Varie asked.</p><p>“I think you should be with them too,” said Florael. “I think this sefirah you join, whichever one it is, should be something more on your level. It can really mess you up in the head, so it’s probably better to mess up while you’re all wingless and can all bounce back from a falling-out. But…I’m not in charge, so.”</p><p>She radiated anger, not at Varie, but at the circumstances. She scratched at her ear and Varie again noticed the black crystal there, dangling like an earring. There wasn’t a matching one on the other side. It was roughly diamond-shaped, although not cut particularly well, like it had been shattered off a chunk of obsidian on a whim.</p><p>“So anyway, why am I here? Well, Lukael’s doing something extremely stupid. I told him not to proceed with courtship, but here we are. He put in his bid for you to join his sefirah. And this is a symbol of that bid.” Florael picked up the satchel with her teeth and deposited it into Varie’s hands. </p><p>“Who’s Lukael?” said Varie, remembering the erel who’d been aligned to him, and being carried away from the Prince. Had they met Lukael before?</p><p>Florael said, “I literally can’t tell you everything you’d need to know, but I’ll try. He’s an esh, and the head of my sefirah, and he’s hoping to complete it with the addition of you. Eventually. Right now you don’t suit his standards. We both agreed, this is a rude situation for everyone, but we’d like to help you if that’s cool.”</p><p>Varie unwrapped the satchel, and it turned into a much bigger version of the cloak Florael had worn. From the length of it, it would fit Varie.</p><p>“It’s eshweave,” said Florael, “It suppresses emanations. So if you’re interested in like, not bothering the other eshim, you can wear this while you’re in their house. It’s considered polite.”“Why couldn’t I wear one of these earlier?” Varie asked. The memory of feeling so exposed while angels whispered in the distance crossed their mind. Florael’s ears pressed against her head in reaction to it.</p><p>“Anywhere else, it’s considered rude to hide your wings, or the closest thing you have to ‘em,” said Florael, “But I don’t think anybody knew exactly how much an ophan like…emanates. It’s…pervasive. And uh…if you had the ability to cloak your emanations…I think you would’ve, by now.”</p><p>Varie would have needed quite some time to process the intensity of this embarrassment, but the floor rattled and the filing cabinets shimmied open. Something deeply groaned through the earth. Varie fell against one of the cabinets. Florael’s tail poofed and she hopped into Varie’s lap. The shaking and quaking rippled the walls. Documentation fluttered about. Stones ground and Varie could feel the force of the vibrations right through their soul. It was as if the building were an extension of Varie’s body. They could feel the foundations being rearranged.</p><p>Florael didn’t need to tell Varie that the ophanim were involved. Varie could feel their influence, like a hand that had reached down from the sky to adjust something in the house of eshim. In that one moment where the house of eshim was open to outside emanations, GOTZON wished Varie well. The elder ophan was at once endlessly enormous, powerful, tired, and broken. Just as suddenly, the eshweave was strung around new walls and the house became closed off once more. Varie was once again separated from their house.</p><p>When the earthquake suddenly ended and there were no more sounds, Varie let out a shuddering sigh. Florael pressed into Varie’s embrace. </p><p>“There’s a new wing in the house,” said Varie. The internal layout of the house of eshim had pressed itself into their mind. “It’s…it’s attached to the house of bene elohim? I’m to meet someone there.”</p><p>“I really wish they’d announce it when they were about to do big stuff like that,” tsked Florael. </p><p>Florael licked her tail back down to its normal size and left Varie’s lap. She asked for help putting her eshweave cloak back on. Then Florael scratched at the door, because she wasn’t the greatest at operating doorknobs. She looked behind her and couldn’t help but smile.</p><p>Varie swept their new eshweave cloak around themself. They tied the knot over their collar. The material felt a lot like suede, very soft and with a thick consistency to it. The color was very desaturated violet, the same hue as a dye that Varie recognized as coming from the glands of a rare, poisonous snail. The cape had plenty of width and a hood for fully closing Varie off from the outside world.</p><p>“So it’s good?” said Florael.</p><p>“Yeah, it’s nice,” said Varie.</p><p>“I’ll let Lukael know,” said Florael.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. Whatever Happened to Lavinia, Anyway?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie meets an old acquaintance. They were supposed to meet a bene eloah!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Silver filigree marked the entrance to the new wing. An ornate lock barred the door. The filigree was smithed into lifelike serpents winding their way around and through the lock. The way light danced across the doorway’s surface, the sculptures seemed alive. Varie gripped the neck of their new cloak in their hands, unsure of how the door opened. They were supposed to meet someone in here, right? A bene eloah? </p><p>The eshweave worked as Florael said. Up until that point, there was always an esh hanging out on the periphery. Whenever Varie needed help, an esh would appear. But here, in front of this doorway with a keyhole populated by mirrored snakes, Varie couldn’t figure out how to unlock it, and no esh showed up to assist. Varie wondered if the eshim sensed their emanations and tailed them that way.</p><p>No better way to test it out than to remove the cloak. Varie unthreaded the button. The soft cloth fell from their head. They looked around and, sure enough, a woman with black wings approached.</p><p>Not only that, but Varie heard music coming from somewhere beyond the door. They lifted the hood back around their ears. The fabric blocked the music. Still, they couldn’t shake the idea that their ears hadn’t been hearing it. It seemed like an emanation? Did objects emanate too? Varie lowered the hood again. The song continued, faintly, at the edge of Varie’s senses.</p><p>“Does the ophan Variel require assistance?” the esh asked.</p><p>“I’m supposed to be here, to meet someone,” said Varie. “How do I…?”</p><p>Varie motioned at the lock. The esh glanced over the silver knotwork.</p><p>“This is a singing lock,” she said, “It opens to the appropriate emanation.”</p><p>“Um…Like, an emanation in particular? Or?” Varie asked.</p><p>“We do not emanate, so we would not know,” said the esh. </p><p>“Okay then,” said Varie. They focused on the lock, and the winding, inaudible tune within. Varie slipped into the same meditative state as they’d felt when GOTZON put this thing here in the first place. They could feel the coils of the lock within. The materials sprang into Varie’s mind — Quicksilver, glass, the ebb and flow of the tides — The tumblers slid around and through each other, before slotting into place.</p><p>Varie opened their eyes. The singing lock opened to reveal an arched hallway lined with a single continuous mirror, floors and walls included. The soles of Varie’s feet chilled as they walked down the hallway. The coils of the tumblrs slid shut behind Varie. The air was cold, so Varie pulled their cloak back up around their shoulders and head.</p><p>What Varie knew about the bene elohim had been emanated directly into them. Serving the domain of reflection, the bene elohim mirrored and improved those around them. Within a sefirah, a bene eloah could tutor younger or inexperienced winged by assuming their forms and projecting their knowledge one step ahead. The house of bene elohim presented this as their main claim to being in contact with Varie: No ophan would, or could, abandon its post above. A bene eloah, namely Xor, could easily take an elder ophan’s place in this circumstance.</p><p>The room at the end was like stepping into the interior of a diamond. It was a twelve-sided shape with tessellated facets overhead, each beaming down its own perspective of Varie. Spotting their own face up above, Varie was relieved to see that they still looked, well, like themself. They smiled back at the scrappy smirk they could see under their hood. </p><p>All things considered, Varie still looked like themself, minus pigments under their fingernails and the stress of needing to be somewhere with their paintbrush and supplies. Maybe a little scruffier than usual for lack of hairbrushes. Yes, the thick collar with gemstones was also not quite in line with Varie's fashion sense of old. They had a few wrinkles under their eyes, sure, but who wouldn’t, after the week they’d had?</p><p>“I feel like I’ve seen you in a dream,” said a familiar voice behind Varie.</p><p>Varie turned, expecting to meet this bene eloah named Xor. The familiarity of their voice must have been an attribute of her house. At first glance, the entity with feminine curves, reflective robe, and mirrored visor seemed to be a stranger. She was wingless yet, perhaps one of the new fledges. The shape of the visor gave her identity away, for it was the same as it had been before.</p><p>Varie’s heart leapt when they realized. They never thought they’d feel such a rush at seeing this person again. They’d only ever been acquaintances, at best. Maybe Florael was right: Being in this strange place, all alone, disconnected from others, even one familiar face was like seeing, well, someone Varie loved. The emotion sideswiped Varie. They loved her. They wanted to embrace.</p><p>“Lavinia?!”</p><p>But when Varie took a step closer, the bene eloah threw her hands in front of herself and screamed, “No! Don’t!”</p><p>“Lavinia, Lavinia it’s you,” said Varie. “You’re so beautiful. Wow.”</p><p>Helplessly, they stayed away.</p><p>“Don’t come any closer. I want to be me! I want to be Xor,” the bene eloah sobbed.</p><p>Varie choked back tears. “What’s wrong, Lavinia? Are you her? Or are you Xor?”</p><p>“I don’t know who I am!” said the bene eloah, “I’m supposed to meet the ophan, Variel. Who is Variel?”</p><p>“It’s me, but,” said Varie, “I’m still Varie. Not Variel.”</p><p>“Varie, Varie, Varie…So that all wasn’t a dream? I haven’t always been like this?”</p><p>“You mean…this?” Varie gestured uselessly. All of their mirrored copies gestured too. They noticed that Lavinia, or perhaps Xor, cast no reflection herself. But it surely seemed like Lavinia who stood before them. They couldn’t shake that sense of recognition.</p><p>“It doesn’t matter. I need to meet Variel, or I’ll be eaten,” sobbed the bene eloah. “Please. Can you take me to them? Please. They’re an ophan. They emanate. My sefirah is courting them. I must give them a gift. It was all a dream. I know now. This is the only true reality.”</p><p>“I’m Varie…Variel,” said Varie.</p><p>“No you aren’t! You’re an esh!” said Lavinia.</p><p>She wasn’t this ‘Xor’, Varie decided. Or maybe her name had been changed to a greater degree than Varie’s? What had happened to her? </p><p>“No I’m not, I’m an…ophan,” said Varie, but that felt wrong, too. They were neither an esh nor an ophan. They were human.</p><p>“Then what’s with your robe?” demanded Lavinia.</p><p>Varie saw Lavinia’s point. They weren’t emanating through the eshweave, and their black robe was something the eshim wore, honestly. “Oh! Here, I swear it’s me.”</p><p>They shrugged off the robe, hoping that would be the end of it. Instead, Lavinia screamed again and burst into tears, this time seemingly out of joy, for she cried out at how beautiful Varie was. It was much like Apha’s reaction. Definitely not what Varie expected.</p><p>Varie put the cloak back on. “I—I put it back on, Lavinia. Don’t do this. I don’t like it.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, it’s, it’s been a long…time?…for me?” the softly weeping bene eloah muttered from where she’d sprawled on the floor in supplication. “Lavinia. That’s right, I’m Lavinia.”</p><p>“Hey, it’s okay,” said Varie, taking steps forward. The bene eloah was preoccupied with staring at the reflective floor. Her own face did not look back up at her.</p><p>“Varie, oh Varie, this isn’t what I wanted it to be, not at all,” sobbed Lavinia. Varie guessed she’d remembered that this name belonged to her. Not Xor. “I thought it’d be parties, Varie. I thought it’d be endless, dancing and loving, I thought I’d see Ratna again…”</p><p>“What happened, Lavinia?” Varie said, still approaching the way a person approaches a wounded, angry animal. They held out their hand. Maybe to soothe Lavinia as she lay wracking herself upon the ground. There there, girl, Varie wondered if they might say. She looked so frail and old, with her spine clearly visible along her bared back. But she was most definitely still human, just like Varie. </p><p>A single feather dangled from Lavinia’s right shoulderblade, bearing the telltale sheen of a chayot.</p><p>“I woke up and I felt someone stabbing me on the shoulder,” said Lavinia, choking on each word. “And when I tried to take it out, I heard screaming inside of me — like I was going to—fall apart.”</p><p>Varie nodded. They remembered the scraping pain of their own soul bone. Another step forward, another, very slowly.</p><p>“And it’s been nothing but, being yanked around, scolded, told that I’ve been p-purified,” said Lavinia. “That if I leave, I can’t be in any other sefirot, I’ll be dirty if I do, so I stay or…it’ll eat me.”</p><p>It? Itzkeel. That had to be the seraph.</p><p>“I didn’t know this was what fledging was like,” Lavinia said, “I’d’ve said ‘no’. I would have! This is miserable!”</p><p>Varie took one more step, and Lavinia’s silhouette shimmered.</p><p>“I told you to stay back!” snapped Lavinia. She scuttled away, but it was too late. Her form wriggled out of existence, replaced with a person of shorter stature, in black robes, and an eshweave cloak. A wheel with embedded gems formed around her neck.</p><p>Varie watched a copy of themself gasp many times before their breath slowed to normal and they inspected their own sleeves and hands, apparently no longer in too much distress. It was like having a three-dimensional reflection. Lavinia had taken on Varie’s form.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I hope this turn of events comes across as 'fun' and not 'infuriating'. Please don't yell at me too much in the comments if the latter. :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Facets of Learning</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Varie and Lavinia catch up, and practice magic together. What's a little preening between friends? Maybe Varie's only okay with all this because Lavinia looks exactly like them.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Writing this made me realize: I really need more preening chapters. Thank you to all of my readers and lovely commenters.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Varie watched themself stand up, hold out their hands, examine their arms. Their own eyes stared at them, hazel as ever. Lavinia laughed, once, hesitantly. </p><p>“You’re so young!” said Lavinia, “…<i>I’m</i> so young.”</p><p>“Uh…What pronouns are we using, Lavinia?” Varie asked. It seemed like the only decent question, considering the situation.</p><p>“I’m you. We should use yours,” Lavinia said, and they palmed tears away from their cheeks. They smiled, though. That reassured Varie somewhat.</p><p>“Works for me,” said Varie. They took a step backward. Lavinia’s outline shimmered again.</p><p>“No!” Lavinia cried, and grabbed Varie’s cloak to keep them from moving further away. “Varie! I never knew you had such a sense of, of, of, what should we call it, self? Don’t get too far away from me or I’ll change back. This is the most human I’ve felt in…However long it’s been. ”</p><p>“It’s been a few days,” said Varie. “At least, I think so?”</p><p>Lavinia bit their lip, then pressed Varie’s cloak back together and neatened it up, like a grandmother would do. “My goodness, it’s felt like years. Are you sure? Oh well. It doesn’t matter. I do feel very human.” They blinked, slowly.</p><p>“Right! Now you have eyes again,” said Varie.</p><p>“I do,” said Lavinia. “And a…”</p><p>They struggled to describe the brass ‘wheel’ around their neck. It gleamed with cabochons, just like Varie’s did. However, as Lavinia drew attention to the thing, the gems lit up, one after another. The wheel revolved around Lavinia’s neck and gently expanded outwards, knocking the hood of their eshweave cloak off. It hovered around eye height, about as wide in circumference as the length of Varie’s forearm.</p><p>“How did you do that?!” Varie asked, clutching the wheel that felt so constrictive around their own throat.</p><p>“I just felt like it! Why haven’t you?” said Lavinia. “Isn’t it too tight where it sits?”</p><p>Something about seeing Lavinia do it made the concept click in Varie’s mind. Adjusting the wheel took no more effort than Varie’s intent. Varie felt the wheel loosen around their neck, expand, flip their hood away from their own face, and hover a few feet circumference from their body. They looked at Lavinia, who emanated interest, and joy. The emanation swelled to an unbearable bristle. Suddenly Varie understood Apha’s reaction to their emanations, and the complaints of the eshim. It was altogether a blunt sensation, like invisible, untouchable walls crowding in. Varie’s ears rang from the closeness of Lavinia’s emanations.</p><p>Lavinia pulled their hood back over their head, once their ‘wheel’ was safely hovering out of its way. The emanations stopped. Varie sighed a quick ‘thanks’.</p><p>“Your emanations are almost solid!” Lavinia said. “I’ve never felt anything like that. It’s like a hashmal’s. No, maybe it’s more like a cherub. I don’t know. It’s pervasive! Very strong.”</p><p>“You’ve met other winged too?” Varie asked.</p><p>“Yes…All of them,” said Lavinia, looking away to disguise an expression that Varie had never known could be so ugly on their own face. Varie thought about chayot emanations and their back ached for the bene eloah. Lavinia quickly changed the subject back to ophanic emanations, asking Varie if they minded putting their own hood back up.</p><p>“So, something can happen to your emanations,” said Lavinia, thinking through each word they said, “The emanations can manifest? But I don’t know what that means.”</p><p>“Yeah, your guess is good as mine,” said Varie. </p><p>“All I know is, it requires a, hmmm, oh I think I can feel it,” said Lavinia, “Think of a location in this room where you want something to be.”“Want…what? …To be?”“Something,” Lavinia repeated pointedly. They shook their finger. “You should want something over there. Just try it.”</p><p>“But <i>what</i> should I want?” said Varie.</p><p>“Something,” said Lavinia, helplessly, “Please. I’m guessing at this, but I’ve never been an ophan before. All I can sense is the next step.”</p><p>Varie scanned around the room at all the reflections of themself, each shard of mirror placed at diamond-like angles along the wall. The mirror that composed the ceiling only reflected Varie’s face back at them. Lavinia still didn’t cast any reflection of their own, not from any surface in teh room. </p><p>“Umm…How about there?” said Varie. They’d chosen a random corner tucked between two mirrors at an angle.</p><p>Lavinia instructed Varie to take off their hood. The bene eloah’s emanations pressed in all around Varie. As pervasive as they were, Varie could sense that they were converging all on one spot, pressing it down. For what reason or why, Varie couldn’t figure it out. The emanations ceased when Lavinia pulled up their hood again.</p><p>“Now you do it,” said Lavinia. “I’ll pick somewhere that I want ‘something’.”</p><p>“But why?” said Varie.</p><p>“I’m bene eloah. I reflect you. I can only ever be one step ahead of what you know,” said Lavinia, “You don’t have any ophan mentors. This is how you learn to be an ophan. Bene elohim step in to help where members of the sefirot are missing. If you proceed, so can I, and we feed off each other, like two mirrors facing each other.”</p><p>The gravity of Lavinia’s words seemed so alien coming from Varie’s mouth. Lavinia laughed to break the tension. That matched Varie’s perspective of themself more accurately.</p><p>“Please, Varie: I think this is kinda fun!” Lavinia said.</p><p>Varie tried it out at Lavinia’s behest. At first, it seemed like they were humoring the bene eloah, but as soon as Varie could feel their own emanations circling, focusing in on one location at Lavinia’s direction, it really was fun. Not just ‘kinda’. It felt purposeful. It felt good. The two of them passed ophanic emanations back and forth, with Lavinia taking each step forward, and Varie following. They worked at locations, and eventually made a breakthrough by drawing a single, foot-long line just by thinking about it and focusing all their energy on that location.</p><p>Varie panted and had to sit down. Their sense of balance wobbled. They felt a familiar ache in their soul bone, although it was the kind of ache a person would feel after running, rather than the shattering blow of Prince Illumis’s call. Varie was pleased enough to sit with their back against one of the mirrors in the room and stew in their own endorphins. The mirrors had all fogged up from persperation. Lavinia, however, remained standing, although Varie could tell they too were having trouble staying upright.</p><p>“We’re so close to hitting one and a half feet,” Lavinia said a bit desperately. “Let’s keep going.”</p><p>Sweat trickled down Varie’s back. They wanted to scratch but the itching was definitely coming from the oil gland. Over the course of training with the bene eloah, Varie had gotten used to the solidity of the emanations from their friend. Their cloak lay in a pile with Lavinia’s cloak nearby. “Lavinia, I’m tired, I think I’m all worn out for today.”</p><p>Dread emanated from Lavinia. Varie nodded and sucked in their breath. Oh. When this meeting was over, they would part ways. Varie would go back to the eshim, and Lavinia would…</p><p>“Maybe just a break?” Lavinia asked in Varie’s voice, knitting Varie’s eyebrows together. “Then we continue the session? Please?”</p><p>“Well, I’m feeling sore,” Varie confessed. “I’m sorry Lavinia. I don’t want to overdo this. Last time I had to have a malakh put me back together.”</p><p>And that had been Prince Illumis’s fault, too. Varie winced.</p><p>“Well, maybe we sit for a moment,” said Lavinia, and they did so with a hard thump next to Varie on the reflective flooring. Even though they’d said they were game to continue, Varie could feel the strain emanating from their person. Just as bene eloah did, they were perhaps the same, and one step further than Varie, in terms of fatigue, but also fear. Lavinia noticed Varie’s itchiness and deliberately expressed their own while glancing over Varie’s bared back.</p><p>“We could preen, and then we’d probably be good for another round,” Lavinia said. “That’s worked for me.”</p><p>Varie blushed. “Uhhmmm…”</p><p>“No one has to know if we preen each other,” said Lavinia, “And I won’t take it too seriously if you don’t.”</p><p>“Uhhhhmmmm okay hey sure, hey, let me do you first, how is that?” Varie said, while their own gland itched. It itched so much that it hurt. They knew they couldn’t hide the itching from Lavinia, either, but they graciously accepted Varie’s offer. Lavinia tried to help make it less awkward by expressing enthusiasm for preening, and sharing pleasant memories of doing so with other winged. Varie felt like their blush was burning them down to the toes.</p><p>They looked over Lavinia’s back, for the most part the same as their own. The robe opened in a V to reveal the bump of a gland sitting on the lower vertebra. No feathers had grown in yet, as far as Varie could see. Bare skin all the way up…Except for one flicker of iridescence on Lavinia’s left shoulder. A fully-grown feather dangled there. The Prince’s feather. It marked Lavinia for his sefirah.</p><p>Yanking it out felt easy.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. By the Books</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Escape chapter! Characters exhibiting agency! Characters exhibiting mixed feelings! Characters doing some late night work and getting interrupted!</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading :)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Prince’s feather curved in Varie’s hand. The tip of the calamus of the feather bore blood, which pooled in Varie’s palm. Varie was reminded of when a quill was loaded with ink for writing. Blood also trickled down Lavinia’s back. The long red line went pat, pat, pat on the ground. They didn’t seem to be hurt, but they leaned over with their arms crossed in front of them and dug their own fingers into their sides. Low, terrible sobs rose.</p><p>Lavinia’s emanations boxed Varie’s senses. Panic. Fear. The rawness of chayot emanations through bone. Jolts of lightning, the name ‘Xor’ branded onto the self, as if had been there since the beginning of time. The feather stabbed into flesh. Or else: A flash of blazing feathers, a maw as empty as the space between stars in the sky. Hissing, hissing, hissing, and obliviation.</p><p>Shaking, Varie curled their fingers around the feather, and crushed it in their fist. The shaft bent in two. Barbules separated and poked out from between Varie’s fingers, each bearing a flicker of pale colors.</p><p>“What did you <i>do</i>,” said Lavinia, in a low, terrible version of Varie’s voice.</p><p>“You’re not going back,” said Varie. They’d made the decision very quickly. So…time for logistics? Yes, definitely time for logistics, judging from the fear in Lavinia’s face. Their own face. Varie had no idea they looked so intense while upset. Varie couldn’t help contorting their own face to match. Who was the reflection now?</p><p>“Where am I supposed to go?” Lavinia breathed.</p><p>They regretted expressing sadness to Varie. This was Lavinia’s dream, to live among the winged as one of their own. That meant being part of a sefirah, and not just any sefirah: Prince Illumis’s select few, only the most resplendent individuals in the Empress’s ever-changing kingdom. Lavinia took the feather out of Varie’s hands and looked its mangled form over. It spun, flashing prisms, between Lavinia’s fingers.</p><p>Varie thought about the staircase. They must have emanated it as well, for Lavinia’s hand froze around the feather.</p><p>“The…Magister’s Mezzanine? It’s up here?” said Lavinia. They indicated the worry that they could be tracked by their emanations. If Prince Illumis sensed their exit, he could summon Lavinia back to his side. “I thought that was in the human w—Our world.”</p><p>Together, Varie and Lavinia looked at their eshweave cloaks.</p><p>“There’s really a staircase back down? It’s just…there?” Lavinia asked. The leap of their emanations into hope stressed Varie out, but it was worth it, and so much better than the despair.</p><p>Wrapped head to toe in the soft fabric, Varie opened the door for Lavinia. Not back to the house of bene elohim, but to the house of eshim. Lavinia stepped into the foyer and seemed to assume their footsteps would trigger its collapse. They’d never witnessed this place. Varie sort of regretted not being able to feel Lavinia’s emanated reaction to it, but at least the cloaks were working. It wasn’t an impressive house or anything, not like the ophanic manor, but Varie liked it well enough.</p><p>“It’s okay,” said Varie, “We’ll just be quiet and sneak out.”</p><p>Lavinia took deep breaths. “He probably already knows I’m out. I lost sense of the sefirah. He probably stopped sensing me, too.”</p><p>“Maybe the eshweave blocks him,” Varie said, and decided to put their faith in the idea.</p><p>“Varie, Varie what are we going to do if that’s not true, if he catches us?”</p><p>“Shh,” said Varie, knowing the kinds of things flashing through Lavinia’s head. “We’ll figure it out. Come on.”</p><p>Up ahead, voices murmured, and footsteps pattered. Varie drew Lavinia into a space between two bookshelves. They hid their faces into the cloth. Two eshim glided past, deep in conversation with one another. Varie dragged Lavinia down the opposite direction. Every time Varie caught a glimpse of black feathers or heard scholarly jabber, they pulled Lavinia into a new hiding place. They spent time behind bookshelves, crouched under a table, and even a few terrified moments believing themselves to be spotted next to carved sculptures. The eshim, however, were always engrossed in their own tasks. Varie appreciated their studiousness, now more than ever. There was one moment where they and Lavinia had to separate, in order to duck on either side of an entryway that thrust out into a larger library. After the wandering eshim passed, Varie noticed that Lavinia’s form shimmered from the distance. Perhaps they emanated a little, for the eshim expressed curiosity at ‘an emanation’ and turned around. By that time Varie had grabbed Lavinia’s wrist and yanked them into the shadows. Lavinia's form solidified once more into Varie's. It bothered Varie that some of Lavinia’s emanations were conflicted, wishing both to leave and return to the Prince's throne room, unable to reconcile the two desires.</p><p>Nothing lit the magister’s mezzanine when Varie and Lavinia arrived. The fountains lay clear and still, and all the doors were closed. Varie’s eyes adjusted to the darkness. They disliked the leap in their heart when they scanned the Magister of Culture’s closed door. Varie focused on Lavinia, once they shut the door to the hallway behind them. It squealed if shut too quickly, so they worked together to edge it closed. Once the room was sealed, Varie headed towards the familiar bannister of the spiral staircase. It was so simple, there had to be a catch, but Varie couldn’t figure out what those might be.</p><p>Lavinia remained at the edge of the circumference that would allow them to maintain Varie’s form. They were nowhere near the staircase. Their outline flickered. </p><p>“Lavinia,” Varie hissed. What did the bene eloah think they were doing?</p><p>“We can probably still go back,” said Lavinia. </p><p>“Why would we?” said Varie.</p><p>“If we beg forgiveness, he’ll take us back again,” said Lavinia.</p><p>“Lavinia, what’s gotten into you?”</p><p>“I don’t know, it’s just…I can’t keep your shape, and, when I was far away from you, the eshweave started to disappear too,” said Lavinia, looking at their hands. “What if we can’t stay hidden?”</p><p>Logistics, again. Varie wracked their brain.</p><p>“I don’t know, maybe we’ll practice magic together and that’ll fix it,” they told Lavinia. “Maybe you’ll get better at holding my shape.”</p><p>“I can’t just be <i>you</i> forever.”</p><p>Varie watched Lavinia pull out the snapped chayot feather. They’d been keeping it the whole time against their chest. The feather reflected light from nowhere. Varie’s silence was inspired by the truth of Lavinia’s words. They couldn’t just be Varie forever. They were Lavinia! <i>She</i> was Lavinia.</p><p>“I’ll put it back. He’ll never know,” said Lavinia. </p><p>To Varie’s horror, their friend pulled back their eshweave cloak. The emanation thundered out, unmistakable. They were bearing their back and trying to aim the feather back to their skin.</p><p>“You can come back too, I’ll vouch for you,” said Lavinia, extending their free hand. The feather, broken and bent as it was, did not insert itself easily back into the human skin, splitting along its shaft at Lavinia’s attempts. “I’m in his sefirah. He’ll listen to me. This was just a stupid, stupid idea. We’ll apologize. We’ll behave. Everything will be okay. We'll go back to the most shining and lovely sefirah in the world.” This was said with further attempts to re-integrate the feather. None of them worked.</p><p>Varie shook their head. The visions of Itzkeel’s mouths were too strong a memory. Even worse, they’d raised their voices during the argument, and it would only be a matter of time before an esh popped in to check on what was apparently an ophanic emanation.</p><p>A doorknob squeaked.</p><p>“Lavinia, do <i>you</i> want to be in his sefirah?” said Varie. "Or is this a thing you want because...it seems <i>like</i> something you should want?"</p><p>No matter what, though they knew their plan was ill-conceived, there was no way Varie would honor Lavinia's urge to return. And fuck, the doorknob that squeaked? Definitely coming from the Magister of Culture’s office. Varie caught Lavinia by surprise by charging into them and knocking them on their butt. They pulled the eshweave back over their shoulder. The feather dropped to the ground.</p><p>But Lavinia was bene eloah. Bene eloah took the shape of the one nearest to them, and improved it. Whatever little strength Varie could muster, it was gently, and inevitably, one-upped by Lavinia. They were also suddenly scrappier, grabbing and yanking Varie’s eshweave cloak off, wholesale. If anyone was seeking Varie, there was their emanation, loud and clear.</p><p>The door swung open. Light flooded into the mezzanine. Footsteps. The silhouette of someone's shadow split the light in too. A voice inquired, but with too much inflection for an esh.</p><p>“Come on, stop being stupid, I told you we’ll figure it out,” said Varie. Lavinia was so distracted by the door opening and light spilling into the room that they were easy to yank down the staircase. </p><p>Framed by moonlight streaming out of the office, Apha dropped their books in surprise. Only one last flick of Varie and Lavinia's eshweave cloaks marked their exit half-stumbling down the staircase.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. New Wing Under Construction</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Things are a lot different in the palace than Varie remembers. How much time has actually passed, anyway?</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Varie and Lavinia fled through hallways, skirting ballrooms and kitchens.</p><p>The layout was all wrong. Bigger, with more corridors, thinner walls, higher ceilings. Sometimes Varie spotted a painting they remembered, stuff like fig leaves in a particular entwining pattern up and down some columns, but it was interwoven with all sorts of unfamiliar depictions of nature and stories of the Avian Empress.<br/>
Stranger still, they ran into no one. Who had altered the palace so heavily, only to abandon it? Lavinia fell into a silence that bothered Varie.</p><p>Varie only realized they’d reached what they once called ‘home’ when they spotted the rose over the portal, crowded in by other roses. The original painting was meant to stand by itself like a signature. Perhaps this second, unknown artist, skilled as they were in replicating Varie’s brush strokes, had added flowers so that the original painting wouldn’t draw so much attention to itself. A new fresco had also been affixed to the wall of the guild dormitories to backdrop a small indoor garden. It depicted the story of Fenicia of Hallowed River, circa 103 AD, who burned alive into ashes defending her faith. She stood in the fire and smiled gently at it licking her body, as if it couldn’t help what they did, for flames were flames. Plump little humanoid cherubim carried her ashes into the sky with chalices. Each cherub had round buttcheeks and innocent blue eyes. Wee flappy wings held the cherubim aloft. Ribbons cloaked whatever dangled.</p><p>Lavinia huddled next to Varie. They pulled their cloak tightly about themself. “What is it?” </p><p>“This wasn’t here when I left,” said Varie, “Fresco of this size…would have taken months to compose.”</p><p>“N-not to mention the paperwork,” said a voice behind them, “That alone took a year to file. Couldn’t get to a consensus on which story suited the landing. S-s-so we added a few things and pushed it through.”Apha hurried over the checkerboard marble flooring. Their hair was in curls and they were a bit chubby themself, cherubic even. They wore their halo around their wrist, as the Magister had done, once. They were shaking, breathless, sweaty, and couldn’t tear their gaze away from Varie. Their eyes were dark brown.</p><p>Varie hurtled into the dormitory with Lavinia in tow. Apha called after them, over their hands on their knees while they bent over to catch their breath. Apha had personally worked very hard on the paperwork for this fresco. They’d won a promotion for it.</p><p>“Th-that’s why the Prince of All Creation is in the background, seated on his throne and watching, even though he didn’t exist during Fenicia’s time.”</p><p>On the fresco, Prince Illumis’s mask did stare from beyond a mountainous landscape. His throne was made of pressed and polished ashes.</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>The Avian Palace had three walls encircling its keep, each containing a courtyard, a gate facing East, guard towers, and barracks. Two knights leaned against a table and played dice into the darkened hours. Lanterns lit their game. They left their helmets on the table, so that one of the knight’s hair could spill around her shoulders and so that the other knight could use one helmet as a dice tray. They bet leaves with each other that they’d gathered from the daily hedge trimmings. Perhaps the leaves represented real money, but probably not, from the way the two joshed with each other.<p>While inside the palace, Varie hadn’t been able to make sense of the time, so it was nice to see stars and the moon and know for sure it was probably about half past ten. That sky up there had no brush strokes. It was cold and distant and real. Lavinia looked at it too. The two of them hid behind a wagon full of garden trimmings. Varie brainstormed some sort of trajectory that wouldn’t allow those knights to see them. Were the guards involved with their game enough? What about the second gate? Third? And then what? </p><p>Lavinia had fallen quiet, so quiet that Varie didn’t want to ask what was on their mind. Better to plan more of this escape route as they went. Varie had the inkling, however, that whatever Lavinia thought, it probably wasn’t in praise of their escape.</p><p>“Wait, what?” Varie whispered.</p><p>The esh, Apha, walked into the lantern light, and quietly conferred with the two knights. Too far away to hear anything, Varie clung to Lavinia and willed themselves into the darkness. Both knights stood up and left their post, leaving Apha to sit and twiddle their thumbs at the table, alone.</p><p>“What is Apha up to?” said Varie.</p><p>Lavinia shoved Varie. To Varie’s horror, they scrambled upright and walked straight into the lantern light. Lavinia’s silhouette shimmered. Varie could feel Lavinia’s emanations eking out. Lavinia begged Apha for help. Varie feared the guards in the second gate up ahead hearing Lavinia's wails. Apha held up their hands, shaking their head. Varie leaped out and scrambled, but it was too late. Lavinia lost Varie’s form. For an instant, they emanated, but then their shape coalesced into that of Apha, black robes and all, and their emanations vanished, as an esh’s would.</p><p>Varie muscled between Apha and Lavinia, fists up, as if it would do anything. Varie was surprised that Apha took the threat seriously.</p><p>“You’re not taking us back,” Varie snarled, “There’s no way.”

</p>
<p>“S-sorry, sorry, I thought, well, the protocol is to alert the hashmallim, when an emanating angel is visiting the human world—“

</p>
<p>“You <i>alerted</i> who?” said Varie. A quick glance to the table. One of the helmets had been left behind. Varie grabbed it and held it aloft. It might be heavy enough to clock Apha. What had Apha done? Who was coming after them? </p><p>“Not the hashmallim!” moaned Lavinia, now with Varie’s voice, and in Varie’s form, hiding behind Varie.</p><p>“It’s—it’s, no, the hashmallim don’t ask questions, it’s for the human’s protection,” sputtered Apha. “It’s none of their business who visits. Lately it’s the Prince. The hashmallim just move the humans out of his way. Or, your w-way. Humans can’t survive witnessing y-you in person, Variel. It's for their benefit.”</p><p>Apha's eyes were so soft and brown. They threw himself on their knees. Varie held the helmet more symbolically than anything. Varie hoped Apha believed they were being threatened. There was no way Varie could strike that face.</p><p>“I’m not trying to hurt anyone,” said Apha, glancing towards the helmet. “You’re all trying to leave, aren’t you?”</p><p>“No, we’re not leaving,” Lavinia said. They pushed past Varie. Their silhouette flickered, unable to resolve itself into Varie or Apha, but some persona between the two of them. “I <i>need</i> to go back to my sefirah! This was all a mistake. Please. I’ll do anything to make it up to the Prince. I’ll…I’ll even go with the hashmallim. I’m…I’m ready. And I’m sorry. Can you tell them that?”</p><p>Tears formed in Apha’s eyes. Varie dropped the helmet out of sheer pity. It clanked off into the grass. There was no way Apha was faking that expression, esh or not. </p><p>“I can’t tell them anything. I can't even take you back to the Prince,” Apha cried, “The thing is…it’s…I…Ophan Variel, please, hear my call. I need this from you.”</p><p>The tear trickled out of one eye. Apha sniffed back further sobs. Finally, after a deep breath, Apha said, “Wherever you're going. Take me with you.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. Different but Unchanged</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>An Apha-POV flashback where we learn about what the Magister of Culture really thinks about Varie.</p><p>By esh standards, the Magister doth protest too much, methinks.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hello friends. I got booked for January so updates may either be slow or nonexistent during that month. I plan to return to regular updates Feb. 5th at the latest. </p><p>What happened with this update is, I tried to intersperse a bunch of POV hops and flashbacks, but the readthrough confused me and likely would have confused all of my readers. I unthreaded the scenes from each other and feel a lot better about first posting this flashback. I'll hopefully having the other scene ready as a post for the 31st if I can, to bring this 'arc' to a close and set up the next one.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Apha’s first year of study in the Empress’s kingdom led to a graduation ceremony. Against a backdrop of black cloth and clematis flowers, an esh presented Apha with a diploma. Of the other fledged, Apha was first in the alphabet, and so was the first to hear the standard message of commencement.</p><p>“The fledged Apha may now apprentice under a master,” said the esh, with all of the enthusiasm normally allotted to a member of her house: None whatsoever. “And learn the ways of our house. Welcome to the first rank of the rest of your career.”</p><p>Apha ducked through. They noticed the walls of clematis flowers first, their leathery petals a pale, limp purple. Blotting out the flowers was a pair of black wings, a black robe covering an absolutely enormous man, and a grim face under long black hair.</p><p>“Well done, esh Apha” said the Magister of Culture. “Now we retire to our office; we have much training to begin.”</p><p><i>Esh?</i> Apha thought, while the two of them walked to the Magister’s office. No preamble, no side trips, no distractions — straight to work. The black wings, the silent hallways and smell of books flipping, the study parties, all of that…wasn’t work to discover what Apha really was? They’d simply been esh, the whole time? Esh, the secret-hoarders? The silent readers? The keepers of <i>quiet things</i>? The music in Apha’s heart clamored to get out.</p><p>
  <i>This can’t be right…I’m a harpsichordist!</i>
</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>The Magister spread a sheaf of forms out over the table, each with its own layout. One was for zoning, another for scheduling, and another requisitioned materials, and yet another was for grant applications. Each had several foot notes and formatting variations depending on who was submitting the form, and how much bother they were going to create.<p>“Hm,” the Magister noted, in response to Apha’s long pause.</p><p>“I just…I thought all that was…” said Apha, blinking. “I didn’t know I’d be fledged for paperwork. </p><p>“Hm,” said the Magister.</p><p>Apha didn’t know what to do with the pause afterwards. They said, “Well, I’m a musician. Magister, Sir.”</p><p>“Since when,” said the Magister.</p><p>Apha realized it had been a full year since they’d even seen a harpsichord, let alone played one.</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Bloodbath. The only applicable term for the paperwork that returned to Apha’s desk for the fifth time. Each slash of the Magister’s pen felt like a physical strike. Apha angrily consulted the stone calendar only to find that, as usual, the Magister was right: That timeslot in the aviary was already booked by some bourgeoisie fashion exhibition, so there wouldn’t be room for the royal quintet and their banquet to exist at the same time. Apha lurched away from their desk. Their fear of the Magister of Culture and his imposing nature gave way to pure, intense, fed-up indignation, mixed with fear that they might be fired. Apha waved the crumpled-up paper like a war flag and stamped to the Magister’s desk.<p>“Why can’t <i>you</i> just do this?!” wailed Apha.</p><p>The Magister crossed his hands on the desk. “Because the esh Apha must, someday, replace us as Magister of Culture.”</p><p>“But I don’t want to,” said Apha. A pause. “Magister, Sir,” they remembered to add.</p><p>“Give it a century’s practice. This Apha may eventually understand the details,” said the Magister.</p><p>“But I don’t even like doing this! I can’t! My mind just …goes all sorts of directions! I imagine things that aren’t there. People aren’t getting their paperwork back because I keep screwing up. They can’t do their projects. I hate doing this anyway!”</p><p>The Magister gestured towards a chair. Apha took a seat. Sometimes, the Magister’s complete lack of emotion enraged them. Today, it was calming. Like screaming into a void. Apha ranted away because at this point, they didn’t care if they were stuffed into a book for their impertinence! Although the Magister had a history of not reacting strongly to anything in particular, Apha was still surprised at his never-changing demeanor after all of their grievances filled the room.</p><p>“It troubles us that it must be this way,” said the Magister, once the rage settled. “We could continue in this office for many hundreds of years. We were, and are, enriched here, in this office, in the thousands of tiny human problems to which we attend.”</p><p>Apha noticed the list of seraph names on the Magister’s desk. There was no way the Magister could attend to petty Guild problems and deal with sefirah matters at the same time. The Magister often worked behind a closed door, leaving piles and piles of civil forms un-approved. Piles that Apha could not seem to shorten, no matter what they tried.</p><p>“I’m just adding extra work with all these mistakes,” Apha said. “You should bring in someone who’s good at this, who can read really small stuff really fast.”</p><p>“We hope Apha would be kind to themself. Those are all skills which can be honed with time and patience,” said the Magister. Apha could see his eyes already drifting the list of seraphim, and they knew the conversation was probably over.</p><p>Except…</p><p>“You’re courting a seraph, Sir?” Apha inquired. An idea hadn’t fully coalesced in their mind, but this felt like the right thing to ask.</p><p>“Hm,” said the Magister. “If we must speak of our sefirah, it should be off the record.”</p><p>Apha nodded. Both eshim recalled their haloes to wrap around their wrists. The Magister gestured the door to the Office of Culture completely shut. The Magister spread three lists across the table. Neatly-lettered notes marked some names, while others had simply been crossed out with the characteristic slash of ink that Apha associated with their own mistakes. The Magister leaned over the list like it was his precious hoard.</p><p>“Be aware that I share not out of mutual respect, but out of understanding that I do not consider a featherless fledged to be a threat to my ambitions,” said the Magister, his voice low enough to be considered a growl. For an esh, anyway.</p><p>“Understood, Sir,” said Apha.</p><p>The room seemed warmer than usual. Apha sat in a plush chair with lion's paws carved into the feet. Under a lamp hung from the ceiling, the Magister explained his reluctance to form a sefirah in the first place. Not only did he prefer distance from emotional affiars, but for the longest time, there wasn’t any chance of a complete sefirah forming, so it seemed like a vain endeavor. When Apha sputtered over the direction of conversation, the Magister permitted them a question.</p><p>“Weren’t you in the Prince’s sefirah?” they managed to ask.</p><p>“Hm. Yes,” said the Magister, and reflections from his wings danced across the table, “It served its purpose, for a time.”</p><p>“Why’d you leave it?”</p><p>“It changed,” said the Magister. “Of the original members, only myself, the Prince, and Itzkeel remained.”</p><p>Apha noticed that Itzkeel’s name was under consideration.</p><p>“Hm. Yes. Of all the seraphim personally observed, Itzkeel is the finest, the most stable,” said the Magister. “If I am to build a sefirah, it must be of suitable quality for an ophan to consider joining. Itzkeel would be ideal.”</p><p>As he said this, he seemed to suffer. When pressed by Apha, he admitted that, while he had the urge to form a complete sefirah, and that there were many high-quality candidates to court, the competition for the ophan agitated him.</p><p>“Sir, I would think you’d have no trouble competing,” said Apha.</p><p>“Hm. My caliber must seem impeccable. But the ophan is…” and the Magister busied himself with a footnote on a fairly unremarkable seraph, one that honestly needed no comment.</p><p>“What, Sir?” said Apha. They’d not met the ophan face-to-face before, but they’d felt the emanation upon their awakening. It hadn’t felt overwhelming or anything, but…hard to describe on human terms. Like something missing, being found and replaced into its proper spot. A key finally tuned just right, hit at the correct moment during a song, a note scratched in to complete a melody.</p><p>“I have interacted directly with the ophan. They were unremarkable as a human. Lazy. Drunk. Silly. Poor lineage. Pointless career. Given the opportunity to achieve their life’s goal, they squandered it. I am unconvinced they’ve changed upon being fledged,” said the Magister. “And this, this is what gives me pause. To what effort do I invite this entity in to my inner circle? Do I trust them to pull their weight?”</p><p>“Oh,” said Apha.</p><p>Deep down, Apha knew fledging hadn’t changed who they were, either. They weren’t a Magister, neither in the moment nor in the future. Apha was a harpsichordist.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>In light of a possible hiatus, be sure to subscribe to the fic if you want updates! For those already sticking around, thank you so much. Hope your winter season is going well.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. So Much for Being Human</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A plan is formed. Varie has a lot of problems with it, mostly having to do with themself. In the end, all that matters is helping Lavinia.</p><p>Chapter also includes hashmallim lore!</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Yes! I managed to squeak this out before my schedule gets blocked in.</p><p>I plan to continue to write, since I find dashing off new story segments really satisfying, but a gentle reminder that updates may be slower during January and subscribing is the best way to keep up with my random update schedule.</p><p>Thank you to my readers. I should be back to regular updates in February. I will also hasten to add, comments are still welcome during this time.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Varie watched Apha draw a hashmallim invocation circle with a piece of chalk on the cobblestones. When Apha mentioned learning this from the Magister of Culture, Varie couldn’t help but bristle in curiosity. Varie barely restrained themself from asking further, not wishing to interrupt the markmaking. The magic design consisted of a horseshoe-shaped mark around three concentric circles. Over the marks, Apha had drawn a pentacle, with each tip capped by smaller circles. Apha sat back on their knees and feet and dusted the chalk from their hands. Already the lights in the second wall went out, one after another, with figures traveling away from the entrance.</p><p>“That should do it,” said Apha. They rose to their feet. </p><p>“How’s that work?” Varie asked.</p><p>“The hashmallim can, essentially, <i>become</i> emanations, so they form a cloud and do a sweep based on where you tell them to go,” said Apha, “They’re harmless to humans but they move them out of the way by emanating bad feelings. That way we don’t have to worry about anyone ah, taking someone’s eyes. Just, like, an example.”</p><p>Varie couldn’t help it. They looked at Lavinia.</p><p>"They can also ferry people and things around, they're the ones who fetch things in response to summoning circles," said Apha, "They're really neat. I like them."</p><p>“Hey, Lavinia? How are you?” Varie asked.</p><p>Lavinia turned their face towards each light in the gateway as it darkened. Their shoulders, which had been hitched around their neck the whole night, finally lowered. </p><p>“Let them take their time,” said Apha.</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>It was an odd night for everyone in the palace.<p>Every so often, throughout the years, all the guild workers in one room or another would feel a pervasive sense of dread about their work, shared with every other person in the room. They would leave their scaffolding and paint brushes where they worked, and leave for another room, briefly. Then, the next room over, the guild workers would, for lack of a better word, <i>feel</i> something exploring the vacated area. Their hair would stand on end. </p><p>And then, just as suddenly, the essence, the entity, whatever it was — would no longer be there. </p><p>Tonight, this very strange night, the dread followed everyone, from room to room, while not one but two <i>somethings</i> traveled in its wake. Seemingly at random, the two dangerous entities traversed hallways, as if lost. Soon the entirety of the palace had been herded into one ballroom: Kitchen workers, dukes, servants, diplomats, a visiting queen, it didn’t matter the rank. They all crowded in with each other and gasped as they felt  presences meandering about the hallways, unseen and unheard, but <i>there</i> all the same.</p><p>Not only that, but there was news that an unknown person in black robes had spoken directly to the guards at the third gate, the one closest to the palace itself. The person continued to consult two unknown figures, clad in cloaks. The captain of the second gate observed the trio through a telescope. He’d caught a glimpse of the Prince of All Creation before. It’d nearly taken his eyes, but simultaneously, the Prince was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. He wished to someday see the Prince again.</p><p>Of the three figures, two looked human enough, but the third felt…difficult to observe, as if his eyes wanted to rest on their cloak, but could not. </p><p>All too soon, his stomach seized up, and anxious thoughts skittered through his mind, borne by the hashmallim. He initially obeyed the urge to look away from the cloaked figure. The captain placed his telescope back in its case and motioned to his senior guards. This winged magic, whatever it was — it could be resisted, with enough patience and practice. He’d gradually built up a tolerance to it, encounter by encounter. While the rest of his forces abandoned their posts along the top of the wall, the captain turned the opposite way, through the threatening staircase to the drawbridge, and his senior guards went with him.</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Sparks crawled out of Apha’s invocation circle. They wound around each other with intertwining sizzles, until they became, roughly, human-shaped, with two arcs of electricity arching like wings behind. Apha reacted as though the entity had called them by name. Varie realized that it was emanating rather than speaking. The emanations could not pierce Varie’s eshweave cloak, and so they were left out of half the conversation.<p>“Hashmal Osterion, what a surprise,” said Apha, clasping their hands together and bowing, “I almost never see you. Ha ha.”</p><p>The electricity swirled. Its patterning looked like a human nervous system suspended mid-air, and moved in a rather human-like way, returning Apha’s bow. Motes of light popped into and out of existence around it. The nerves near the hashmal’s mouth opened and closed invisible ‘jaws’. Apha listened intently, nodding, while Osterion ‘spoke’.</p><p>“Oh dear,” said Apha, thinking.</p><p>“‘Oh dear’ what?” said Varie.</p><p>“Osterion says some of the humans weren’t scared off,” said Apha, “We’ll have to sneak past them. But there’s a liability. Hmm.”Varie wondered what Apha’s look meant. A sinking feeling told Varie that the ‘liability’ was themself. The hashmal snapped like a campfire. It gestured a limb made of interwoven plasma nodes towards Lavinia.</p><p>“Good idea,” said Apha.</p><p>Varie hated the resulting plan. It was a great plan, all things considered, but they hated that it was required in the first place. One eshweave cloak was not enough to safely contain their emanations from human perception. Two ophanim in cloaks were twice as much trouble. However, two eshim, working together, could suppress the emanations that protruded beyond an ophan’s cloak.</p><p>“Really, it’s fine, we’re happy to do this for you, Variel,” said Apha. </p><p>The other Apha, who was really Lavinia, smiled for the first time that night. Apha encouraged her to remain she/her. It may have been a kindness or simply a way to remain separate and neutral from Lavinia.</p><p>“It’s such a relief,” she said. “I just feel so…quiet. Contained. But not…cut off.”</p><p>Apha walked towards the gate. “I’ll go ahead, and you follow from behind, okay Lavinia? If we spot someone we’ll just move between them and Variel.”</p><p>Varie tugged at the collar of their robe. “It’s just Varie,” they said, finally. Something about the way Apha encouraged Lavinia to be more herself made it easier to state, made it feel more real. Apha apologized.</p><p>As the three of them walked through the gate, the impending problems grew more and more complex in Varie’s mind. Would the hashmallim clear the streets of the surrounding city for them? How would they leave the floating continent? Would the airships even allow them to board? Varie didn’t have a guild badge anymore. They couldn’t help but believe they were being watched. There was no way they’d hop onto an airship unnoticed, if Avian Court magic was involved. The cobblestone path led through a great, flat lawn of soft grass. Dew collected in the moonlight.</p><p>For all the care Apha had put into positioning themself to skirt the path, leading Varie along trimmed hedges, with Lavinia trailing behind, Varie could not help but feel the whole errand was in vain.</p><p>Then they heard the call of a man.</p><p>He was fully armored with the crest of the Empress on a banner tossed around his shoulders. He brandished a polearm at Varie.</p><p>“Who are you?” he demanded of Varie, once, twice, each time sounding shakier.</p><p>He had two other armored guards flanking him.</p><p>“I am Varie of Wiloma,” said Varie, hands up. At the sound of Varie’s voice, one of the guards lost their nerve and ran helter-skelter into the darkness. The other was shuddering massively, but stayed true to their captain. Though the eshweave blocked most of the emanations, Varie could sense, through the skin of their palms, thousands of invisible fingers grasping at the humans, trying to pull them out of harm’s way.</p><p>“Varie? WIloma? I don’t recognize either of those,” said the captain, “Who are these other two?”</p><p>Lavinia had her back pressed against the hedges. Apha pleaded with the guards to leave alone, for they were in danger. “Look away!” Apha kept saying, but their warning went unheeded.</p><p>“Leave them alone,” said Varie, “Please. We’re just trying to be on our way.”</p><p>Apha broke away from the bush and flung themself in front of Varie. “Please! Don’t look, this is an ophan! Perceiving them will cause you harm!”</p><p>Varie cried “No!”, but the captain had already butted Apha out of the way with the blunt end of his spear. Varie watched the esh tumble away, clasping their stomach. The guard captain approached, one torturous step at a time. “Show me your face!” he roared, while the other remaining guard fell to their knees and pressed their face into the earth to avoid looking.</p><p>The realization hit Varie: They could see an esh and a bene eloah coexisting peacefully with the humans, especially if Lavinia continued to adopt Apha’s form. What they could not see was themself alongside the two of them. Not if every mortal reacted like <i>this</i> to Varie’s presence. Varie recognized the reaction: They’d done the same thing in the presence of the cherub Poyel, Consort of the Prince, however long ago that was. They remembered the helpless adoration, the love that at once stung their heart deeply and filled their mind with light, the blood that dripped from their tearducts for hours afterwards. The Ecstasy. Varie grasped the edges of the eshweave cloak. So much for feeling particularly human…</p><p>“You may see,” Varie commanded, sadly, “But Apha and Lavinia must go.”</p><p>The last Varie saw of their friends that night was when they ran across a lawn, hand-in-hand, black robes swishing behind them. Good. Varie turned to the guard, who’d knelt in supplication.</p><p>“I’m so sorry,” said Varie, to the guard captain.</p><p>When they pushed the cloak away from their face, there was one instant where Varie beheld the captain writhing ecstatically while blood poured from his face. Another instant, and Varie felt ghostly fingers grasp their spine. The cloud of invisible hashmallim collectively yanked Varie off the grass and into darkness, where nothing else existed except a command.</p><p>“OPHAN VARIEL. WE SUMMON YOU.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0027"><h2>27. Mistranslations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The hashmallim bring Varie face-to-face with a complete sefirah. They're not quite happy with how things are going.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Finally! Got some time to write. Hello again, from weird angel hell…Updates are still going to be a bit slow throughout the following months, until at least March.</p><p>This chapter also contains coerced preening and asphyxiation, so please see my notes on the subject at the end if you need a summary to continue enjoying the story.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Varie merged into electric threads. The hashmallim shimmered together. The call that summoned Varie reverberated through all of the hashmallim as a shared emanation. House Hashmallim rested, invisibly, across all of the Empress’s country. While buoyed in the blazing currents, Varie felt as though Her vast kingdom was their own body.</p><p>And then gravity caught up with Varie. Each atom clicked into place with molecules, molecules re-formed cells, building into organs and bones and a screaming mouth. Soon Varie was a shivering form in the middle of a painted circle, a small thing in a vast world. They didn’t know what to do with their limbs. They felt heavy and raw. Static crackled through their hair.</p><p>The summoning circle was painted on brass tilework. At each point of the star stood one of those alert but lifeless humans, the ones from the preening room that Varie had encountered earlier. Five in total, each looked exactly alike, although Varie’s vision glanced off their faces and wasn’t able to make out many defining features. The human-like entities knelt. Each grasped Varie by the wrists and helped them to their feet. Their grips remained, vicelike, around Varie’s shoulders, elbows, and wrists. They crossed Varie’s arms behind their back.</p><p>An invasive emanation let Varie know that these ‘people’ were simply not, at all, but simulated creations designed to be as people-like as possible. The ophanim created the attendants to serve those winged who had no sefirah to call upon for preening. They were modeled after wingless humans in order to make the winged feel comfortable calling upon their services.</p><p>In unison, the attendants said, “Welcome, Ophan Variel.”</p><p>The tilework only extended for about twelve feet in any direction.  This, too, was ophanic in creation. Beyond its limit was an indecipherable void, in which something enormous dwelled. The team of attendants blocked Varie from looking too intently at it. They wore plastic smiles and frogmarched Varie to a table that suddenly appeared, exactly as long as Varie was tall, perfectly designed to fit just the one ophan. </p><p>An emanation from the void commanded: The ophan Variel hadn’t been preening enough.</p><p>“No, no no, no thanks,” said Varie, face red.</p><p>Varie tried to yank themself free, which caused the attendants to grip harder. Emanations settled over Varie’s mind. Relax. The idea was laid across their mind to let the assistants take off their eshweave cloak. Varie clutched at it, and was surprised by the slack they felt in the otherworldly presence. It allowed Varie to warm up to the idea of, at least, discarding the cloak.</p><p>“Who are you?” Varie asked, not sure which direction to send their query. They still had a hand on their cloak. </p><p>The presence beamed back at them. They were GOTZON’s sefirah, eleven-in-one. They had a true name, bigger than an ocean. Varie fought a sense of vertigo. The sefirah recommended not thinking about it too hard. They, again, encouraged the ophan Variel to allow their cloak to be discarded, and to be preened.</p><p>“Um, I don’t, I could just go do this later,” said Varie. </p><p>No, Variel could not do this later. The emanations made that clear.</p><p>Empress! As soon as they allowed the eshweave cloak to fall away, Varie could feel all sorts of attention focused on their bare back. The attendants folded it into a square and put it away. The next step was to cajole Varie into laying face-down on the table. Varie gulped and remained standing.</p><p>Did the ophan Variel wish to experience impacted feather follicles? Ingrown feathers were very painful. The sefirah’s admonishment hid an edge of deeper disappointment. </p><p>Varie squirmed in the hands of the attendants. No, Varie didn’t want the pustules, irritation, and bleeding, either. So Varie knelt on the table and pressed their belly flat on it. Simulated fingers and palms pressed into their back. Not real, but real enough. Varie figured it would be like last time, but their skin suddenly felt…crunchy? Like little shards were embedded there, not big enough to poke out, but present nonetheless. Waiting.</p><p>The attendants completed their work and dispersed into thin air. Varie was suddenly alone with the sefirah and their own revulsion. <i>Shards</i> in their back. What the fuck? Varie wanted to scrape them out of their skin. </p><p>The sefirah shouted at Variel that they were to do no such thing. It didn’t matter whether Variel appreciated the Empress’s gift to them or not; Variel was not human anymore. They did not belong in the human world. Did Variel not understand the danger they put the Empress in, by going down the staircase? </p><p>Varie exploded. “You expect me to care about a kingdom that does…does <i>that</i> to its people?”</p><p>And, deriving inspiration from the sefirah’s emanations of feelings and imagery, Varie forcefully emanated the memory of Lavinia’s suffering. </p><p>The sefirah radiated back coexisting delight in Variel emanating like that, and, surprisingly, acknowledgement that what had been done to Lavinia was not right, either. The returning emanation was that of the Prince of All Creation, currently occupied by a screaming prison of utter despair. This emanation somehow lasted hundreds of years but Variel was able to perceive it in moments. There weren’t human words capable of describing the experience, so Variel’s brain pieced together ‘Shame Pit’. The sefirah disliked that terminology, but accepted it for the time being. ‘Shame Pit’ it was.</p><p>The thought of being in a Shame Pit themself rattled Varie. The sefirah had definitely considered it for the wayward ophan. Ultimately, though, Varie’s fate would be left to the other winged, those in either incomplete or no sefirah at all. The complete sefirot only intervened when the Empress Herself was in danger. </p><p>In that moment, Varie realized, much like the ‘wheel’ about their neck and the ‘Shame Pit’ that ensconced the Prince in agony, so too, did the concept of the ‘Empress’ also evade the human terminology that did not quite catch up to describing it. She wasn’t a single entity reigning on high…She was something very, very different.</p><p>“Who…who <i>is</i> the Empress anyway?” Varie called into the sefriah’s essence.</p><p>The sefirah echoed back that the Empress was not Variel’s mystery to understand, and that they would be wise to return to Her country as an ophan, not a human. The wheel tightened around Variel’s neck. Variel was to return to the Avian Court and await their judgement.“I’m just Varie,” said Varie.</p><p><i>YOU ARE VARIEL,</i> howled a wind that blistered through Varie’s existence.</p><p>“No—Hey—I can’t br—uk,” Varie said, as their brass wheel pressed their larynx to their esophagus. Their voice was squeezed right out of them. Suddenly breathless, nothing going in nor out, Varie emanated that they were dying, to stop choking them.</p><p><i>YOU ARE VARIEL,</i> the emanation continued, furious.</p><p>Varie pulled at the wheel, expecting stars to form in their vision, or to pass out, something. However, like Florael had once said, they didn’t need to breathe. Varie blinked vacantly, hardly believing it. They emanated confusion. They thought Florael had been joking, but clearly not.</p><p>
  <i>YOU ARE VARIEL.</i>
</p><p>Varie…or rather, Variel…conceded the point. Existing like this felt empty. Cold. They wanted to breathe again, feel their heartbeat in their ribcage. They accepted the name. They were Variel. Variel, Variel, Variel.</p><p>But the wheel remained tight. Not a squeak of air could slip past either way.</p><p>The sefirah laid out their terms for Variel. The ophan Variel would return to the Avias Court. They would exist there, properly, as an ophan: Emanating, as befitted their angelic rank. They would not expel soundwaves as lower forms of life did. The rest of Variel’s judgement would come from their peers. Variel had committed grave harm, and still did not comprehend the entirety of what they'd done.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Detailed summary:</p><p>Varie is dragged into a weird void by the hashmallim.<br/>The void is occupied by a complete sefirah, composed of eleven different angels from each of the major houses.<br/>Varie is coerced into being preened, where they discover their back is full of feather ‘shards’. They hate it.<br/>The sefirah is punishing both Varie and the Prince. The latter is put into something that can only be described as a ‘Shame Pit’ and it’s horrible.<br/>Varie, meanwhile, is forced to accept their new name of ‘Variel’ and their throat is constricted so they can no longer vocalize. They must emanate instead.</p><p>As far as the asphyxiation goes, I don’t necessarily <i>like</i> asphyxiation itself as a concept, but I <i>do</i> like removing one of Variel’s ‘human’ traits and forcing them to use their emanations more. So I will just leave this on a note that in real life, asphyxiation is never ever ‘safe’, don’t do it please! I put this note here because I don’t necessarily know what mindset any given reader might be in. It’s one of those things that might get changed in draft 2 depending on the reactions I see to it. Thank you for reading!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0028"><h2>28. The Worst of Me, the Best of You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>An eloah (not a bene eloah! Just an eloah!) is introduced. Her name is Duchess Rosemay and she's been summoned for jury duty. </p><p>Meanwhile, the Prince visits Variel in a holding cell. This goes about as well as imagined.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Had some fun recharging the writing batteries with a new character and angelic house. Aaaand stuck some Variel/Illumis interactions at the end.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sunlight graced the gardens of House Elohim, and the open aviary where only the tamest cherubim perched. They sang. Polite lyrics, quiet melodies, all in the key of D# so as not to become discordant with one another. The key changed depending on which eloah visited the gardens, and which keys harmonized with the eloah’s moods, and which mood the eloah was in.</p><p>Every cherub dropped the song.</p><p>The flowers flickered, and the earth shuddered. The cherubim flocked to the skies, filled it with screams. It was happening again! The ground thrashed against itself. One second, Two seconds. Each moment, its own lifetime.</p><p>Just as suddenly, the garden settled, but not back into place. Sections of earth had split from each other. Rifts zig-zagged through the flowers. A tree leaned across a table meant for tea parties. Nearby, someone struggled under a collapsed eshweave blind. She dragged herself into the sun. Her tiger’s claws vanished into human fingernails, and she rearranged her bones from a quadrupedal to a bipedal stance. Once upright on two legs and able to perceive the disaster around herself, Duchess Rosemay folded the eshweave under her arm. She was fully human-shaped, except for the lavender wings on her back. And these earthquakes? They weren’t new.</p><p>The first time Rosemay felt the tremors beneath her feet, her winged mentor emanated a calculated amount of calmness. Before Rosemay’s time, the house of elohim never experienced earthquakes. That was when forty ophanim reigned over the Empress’s chosen court, a golden age where every house knew luxury. Food roasted and drinks flowed forever. Clothing could be summoned, and preserved from day to day, and the trinkets! They were so fantastical that they made ageless beings feel like children again. Rosemay often yearned for those days, though she had never experienced them. The way her mentor emanated about them felt like her own memories.</p><p>The ophanim had, long before Rosemay’s time, lost one of their own. Tasked with maintaining a semblance of reality for the Empress’s chosen, the wheels churned more hotly to make up for the missing ophan. Even thirty-nine strong, an overworked ophan only had to hear the screech of a comet trail to be distracted, and then — reality would slip. The earthquakes were simultaneously <i>nothing</i> to fear since they happened on a regular basis, but also <i>everything</i> to fear, since they shouldn’t have been occurring at all. Though elohim subdued negative emanations whenever possible, Rosemay couldn’t hide her suspicion that many of these earthquakes were possibly caused by some chayot. Prince Illumis II would run anyone ragged, even a set of cosmic beings made of eyeballs and infinite brass. Rosemay’s only impression of the Prince came from apologetic gossip that often ended with, ‘Well, at least he isn’t as bad as the first one was.’</p><p>Even so, when the family cherub alighted on the windowsill that afternoon and proclaimed that the Prince of All Creation had returned to House Chayot, Rosemay sighed in relief. Maybe the earthquakes would lessen in number.</p><p>The family cherub was shaped like a mandrill with a peacock’s wings and tail, and he continued the day’s news from a list in his paws, calmly, like no earthquake had happened at all that morning. Rosemay put her spoon down next to her hibiscus soup in order to show the cherub good manners. Rosemay’s mentor folded his hands next to his cup of coffee to do the same. The cherub’s blue nose wrinkled.</p><p>“Jury duty summons have been sent out. Duchess Rosemay’s presence has been requested on the steps of House Grigori, when she finds time in her schedule,” said the cherub, and Rosemay would have spit out her soup if she’d been sipping it.</p><p>She emanated privately to her mentor: Jury duty? What did that mean? At eighty, she was a young eloah; she’d only just grown in all the feathers on her extruded wings. This ‘duty’ thing sounded awful, like labor!</p><p>Rosemay’s mentor reassured her that Jury Duty typically amounted to showing up at House Grigori, then being cut from service by a supervising esh. The eshim were quite picky about their jurors. Showing up was more than enough. It indicated unity between the eleven great houses to see a variety of winged gathered there, ready to perform civic duties on behalf of the Empress. They’d hardly have use for a Duchess, and this emanation landed like a pat on the head.</p><p>“The color of the day is tangerine. The scent of the day is juniper,” the cherub continued.</p><p>Rosemay’s mentor opted into the scent, but put his own spin on it with a dash of vanilla. The cherub sniffed and emanated approval.</p><p><i>Ah, good,</i> thought Rosemay. She’d allowed human words in her emanation as an indulgence to herself. Her mentor loved her too much to call her out on it, but it was the same tenor as babytalk among humans.</p><p>Though she didn’t know much about justice, an eloah was perfectly designed for putting in an appearance. Rosemay finished her soup, then ducked into her changing room. She posed in front of an array of mirrors. Most mature elohim opted for bene elohim to reflect themselves, not ophanic mirrors. It cut down on the workload of the cosmic wheels. Deep down Rosemay knew that these mirrors were not real, but she’d loved mirrors in her previous life, and still loved them, enough to let them tell her their comforting lies.</p><p>Rosemay put together a fresh look following elohim edict. She could adjust her own body however she liked, changing small things like eye and hair color, and big things like her own height and shape. She leafed her irises in gold. She preferred to match her hair color to her wings, including the beard that she’d once grown as a joke, but no one had laughed at it. Her mentor praised her for its silky fullness. The facial hair had gone over so well that she felt bare without it, and allowed it to drape over her chest, silky and silly and purple, but intrinsically her, an icon of her new self. Her clothing could be imagined and changed on a whim. To lessen the cognitive load on the ophanim, Rosemay  imagined and emanated her own selections of draperies and pearls.</p><p>Her wings were immutably lavender with white tips on the feathers and black stripes along the wrists. Her halo, a white disk that persisted behind her head, also had to remain on her person. She could not vanish her wings as the eshim did when they walked among humans. Rosemay could also not adopt any combination of traits that would make her look precisely like any other individual, living, winged, non-winged, alive, or dead; such was the domain of bene elohim. Finally, Rosemay could not adopt non-human traits, for the animalistic cherubim were warlike with each other, and an eloah could not easily grow back missing limbs like a cherub could. For the most part these concepts were easy enough for Rosemay to understand and obey, and she found great variety of looks to enjoy within the restrictions. None of this personal enjoyment stopped Rosemay from sneaking into the garden with her mentor’s eshweave blind to play ‘tiger’, anyway.</p><p>Clad in a champagne tunic with a white cloak fastened to one shoulder, Rosemay wandered. She didn’t have to know where House Grigori was in the garden, just have the idea to go there and the garden would lead her there, eventually. Other elohim wafted between trees and topiaries to join her, sporting their own fashions and perfumes for the day. Everyone had tastefully avoided incorporating tangerine into their outfits. They emanated with each other and repeated the joke that no one summoned ever actually served on the jury. Soon enough, Rosemay thought, she’d be back under the blind with her paws in the earth, and whiskers sprouting from her face, and ears swiveling to hear the undertones of what the cherubim sang.</p><p>House Grigori loomed on the hill, a white marble Greek pantheon of a building with chains wrapped around each column. The sunlight intensified so brightly that the steps glowed. Rosemay ascended them one step at a time. </p><p>An esh at the top took notes at the podium. They spoke to the arriving elohim, one at a time, and just like Rosemay’s mentor had said, each eloah turned away, dismissed by the black-winged angel. As Rosemay approached she heard their conversation carried half vocally, half in emanations. </p><p>“And does this earl have any dealings with The Prince of All Creation in the past?” the esh asked.</p><p>The eloah’s response was a telepathic shrug: no more and no less than anyone else had to deal with the Prince or his insufferable sefirah.</p><p>“Next,” said the esh.</p><p>Rosemay took the departing eloah’s place. She smelled a floral breeze tinged with ashes and made a mental note to incorporate that into her perfume later (with some tweaking, of course, so as not to totally steal the other eloah’s fragrance). Rosemay gave the esh a big, warm smile. She was praised for that smile; it was a heart-melter.</p><p>The esh did not smile back.</p><p>“State this one’s name, and title, if applicable,” said the esh. They tapped their quill against a document.Rosemay’s smile tilted a bit. She wasn’t used to her smile missing its mark. She was the Duchess Rosemay, of course. Surely the esh had heard of her? She had a wondrous beard.</p><p>“Ah. A Duchess,” said the esh, “Tell us this Duchess’s experience with ophanim.”</p><p>Rosemay did not terribly need the ophanim, she was quietly proud to admit. Though she played in the gardens that they emanated for the Empress, and she treated herself to mirrors, she also dressed herself, and only consumed her approved ration of liquid every day. Her mentor’s cherub even preened her, so she had no need of the ophanic preening rooms or their simulated attendants. </p><p>“Mm,” said the esh, and the conversation paused while they made a note. “That’s excellent.”Rosemay’s heart soared. She had done it! She had earned praise from an esh. It couldn’t have been true that they were dead inside, could it? Even though they didn’t emanate, they must still have a soul somewhere deep inside, and Rosemay’s immense angelic power could unlock it—</p><p>“And the Prince of All Creation? Or any chayot?” inquired the esh.</p><p>Rosemay shook her head. Most winged found that adorable. A physical gesture! When one could emanate? How gauche — and what a statement!</p><p>“Return tomorrow. Bearing comparatively few conflicts of interest, this Duchess shall serve during the trial of the Ophan Variel,” said the esh.</p><p><i>Oh no,</i> Rosemay thought, and just barely prevented the word-like emanation from escaping with a hand clasped over her mouth. That sounded so scary! What had she done?</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Rik-tik-tik-tik-tik.<p>Footsteps.</p><p>Rrrrrrik-tik-tik-tik-tik.</p><p>Variel opened their eyes to the Prince of All Creation pacing in front of iron bars. They knew it was him from the owl mask, bright in the darkness. The rattling sound came from his hand. He dragged a bone back and forth across the door to Variel’s cell. Variel was contained within, whereas the Prince was visiting from the outside. The bars were the only thing that separated them.</p><p>“So you think I am a monster,” he rasped, words tumbling from his mouth as though they were alien to him.</p><p>Rrrrik….tik….tik…His steps slowed.</p><p>Variel took stock of their arms around a pillow. They’d been laid down on a cot in the stone cell, on their stomach to help nurture feather growth. Their head hurt with echoes of their own name. Variel, Variel, Variel. That was their name. Their true name. Their only name. It weighed them down. It sealed their lungs. The wheel remained closed around Variel’s throat when they tried to respond to the Prince.</p><p>“Heh,” said the Prince, “Bound. And. Gagged.”</p><p>Variel followed his gesture to his fist, which gripped chains. They wrapped around the Prince’s wings, pinning them to his back.</p><p>“This is what they do, Variel,” wheezed the Prince, “The sefirot. They see you having fun. They take it away. I could have told you, if you’d bothered to ask.”</p><p>Variel felt a pulse of an emanation start, then fail to leave, from the Prince’s body. They realized that the chains pinned his emanations to him. They really hated to admit it but, he seemed so silly-looking as he wheezed and drew breath to speak words he normally commanded with emanations. Variel deliberately thought about Lavinia and the fear in her eyes. No pity for the Prince.</p><p>“So you think I am a monster!” the Prince said, now yelling. “But you pity, how you pity. This human thing! Pity! I hate it.”</p><p>He threw the bone down the hallway behind him.</p><p>“You don’t know the whole story, <i>ophan.</i> If you’d just — talked — to me, you’d <i>know</i>. I loved Lavinia. I did everything she wanted me to do. That she was overwhelmed? Human weakness. Nothing more.”Variel unleashed their fear, of the Prince, of his emanations, of his seraph, of the Magister, of all the incomprehensible aspects of winged society. Once it was all out as an emanation, they wished they could bring it back into themself. They’d desired the ability to cow him. The Prince laughed, instead.</p><p>“I told you, Variel: We take care of our own,” he said. “You’ll see. At your trial.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0029"><h2>29. Roll Call</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>How do trials even work when plaintiffs can communicate telepathically, and therefore cannot lie?Now with Prince Illumis II shenanigans!</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This was a tough chapter because 1.) my schedule and 2.) our villain being villainous again, which is always hard to write since I have to put myself in his shoes in order to understand where he’s coming from. He’s just...yeah. I don't condone how he behaves irl of course, he's just here for Plot (and maybe Kink if I can stop being shy about it).</p><p>I feel rusty about working on this story but I hope to continue soon. I've finally set up all the context I wanted for my fancy imprisonment/servanthood/wingfic jams, and I think I broke the 40k word mark? So that's pretty neat, that's almost a NaNo. I'm hoping to keep the whole story under 80k but we'll see where it goes. Updates will still be a bit slow, so I recommend subscribing to the story for updates since I can't promise a steady schedule. </p><p>Thank you for reading and comments are welcome.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Lukael’s erel stood at the end of the hallway.</p><p>Variel was surprised to recognize the other angel by emanation, since it looked exactly like all the erelim, by design: A suit of armor; a hawk-nosed, empty helmet; hand gripped about a spear; and, smelling of iron, bloodstained wings, which had once been white.</p><p>The erel only had one message for Variel: The only way out of the trial alive was to take what was given, and not to fight. </p><p>Variel was then escorted into the courtroom.</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Only one story of House Grigori protruded above ground, masquerading as a simple pantheon. The rest of the House fell deep into a decagonal pit, at the bottom of which the jurors had gathered, and so had the defense, the prosecution, and witnesses. Unlike a human trial, the winged had no need of lawyers to spin each side of the case. An emanation was an emanation. It cast depicted truth no matter what.<p>The Ophan Variel sat alone behind the defendant’s desk. They clung to the erel’s parting thought. Take what was given. Do not fight.</p><p>The shadow of a book fell over Variel. Forty feet tall by twenty feet wide, it hung suspended at each corner by chains that would have been fit to haul airships. Blood seeped from around where the links of the chains punctured through the book’s cover, some sort of leather. As the balconies above filled with emanations and the hooting of cherubim, some mechanism within the house ground, the chains went taut, and the book pried open. This revealed a page within the book depicting the drawing of a single eye, which looked upon the courtroom.</p><p>The book emanated that it was deservedly nameless, but for the duration of the trial, the choirs could refer to it as ‘Judge’.</p><p>At one’s own trial was probably the worst time to learn about the Grigori. Angels stripped of their wings and feathers, and pressed into objects (usually books), the Grigori were still included in winged society as Judges. They presided over cases great and small. Who would have a greater sense of justice than one who had been ultimately destroyed, rebuilt, and then contained by it? </p><p>Eight houses were represented in the jury by singular members: Eshim, Erelim, Cherubim, Seraphim, Malakhim, Bene Elohim, Hashmallim. Houses Chayot and Ophanim had bene eloah stand-ins, who had formed themselves into reflections of those who were otherwise occupied by their sefirot. Their wings remained mirror-like with reflective feathers. In the witness stand, Prince Illumis II himself perched, one foot suspended over the stand itself, the other crossed at the knee. Everyone stood up to honor the Grig’s open pages and position as Judge, except for the Prince. The Judge made no remarks on him.</p><p>The Judge’s eye glanced to Variel. The cacophony of emanations swelled after. Anger, fear, upset. No member of the courtroom could contain their cry. The emotions bounded loose down the pit and echoed off every corner.</p><p>Variel was no hashmal.</p><p>Variel was no esh.</p><p>Variel was no bene eloah.</p><p>What business, then, did Variel have beyond the Empress’s realm?</p><p>To save Lavinia, was Variel’s first guess, and they immediately knew it was wrong by the answering chorus that numbed them out of their own body. The rest of the trial felt like Variel was watching themself from overhead, for that was the view of all the spectators, and their rage swept past. The hashmallim carried it and let it spread and grow. Distantly, Variel felt their nails dig into their desk, but it was like the memory of touch and not something actively happening.</p><p>Prince Illumis II performed his duty as witness. Since his wings remained chained around his body, he preached his case verbally instead. He told the story of a young painter who loved angels. He knew her very well: They were friends in the years leading up to a fledging, and they were friends for the forty years in between the next fledging. Lavinia had so desired to be fledged, but was missed, and so the Prince had approached her and consoled her in the Empress's garden, and gave her secrets about how to be fledged when the next forty years had passed.</p><p>Yes, the friendship had cost Lavinia her eyes, over time. But her paintings carried the Prince’s gaze. She became a living wonder among humans. Those who saw her work could think of nothing but learning to paint like that. A young Varie of Wiloma caught such a glimpse and it never left their heart.</p><p>But Varie of Wiloma was dead, the Prince proclaimed to the court. So that didn’t matter, did it.</p><p>An emanation left Variel before they could help it, and was quickly quashed by hundreds of emanations in reply: Lavinia was hurt, scared, confused!</p><p>“I only did as Xor asked,” said the Prince, and court cherubim relayed emanations of Lavinia enthusiastically seeking his company. She asked him about the sefirot, what to do to join his. She wanted to be bathed in his constant attention, his light, the colors of his wings. She wanted wings of her own and, more importantly, to leave her deteriorating life behind: Arthritis was developing in her knuckles. She could not longer paint. She wanted to be washed free of all her earthly uncertainties…purified.</p><p>The Prince stood there enjoying the attention. Surely everyone in the audience perceived the facets of his wings and the perfect heart shape of his mask. It occurred to Variel that they must have been blinded by his emanations to ever perceive him as anything even vaguely human: His legs were much too long, his fourteen fingers had claws, and even artfully-draped silks could not disguise his overabundance of ribs and marble skin. All of this was observed as a doctor would peer at a disease. Variel felt empty when they understood that a chayot was human only so long as a person wanted him to be human.</p><p>“Was it my fault, precisely, that the experience wasn’t what she thought it would be? She wanted it all and she got it,” The Prince concluded. “I did know her. I knew she wanted to depart her old life. She looked forward to this one. We loved each other. I wanted her happy.”</p><p>A contingent of bene elohim on the third floor up above roared at him: Xor didn’t even have any feathers of her own! What he’d done was atrocious. If he was going to sneak new members into their house without asking them, the least he could do was hold off on assembling his sefirah.</p><p>“Yes, I <i>know</i>,” said Prince Illumis, his mask flashing, “It’s not like I’m going to do that <i>again</i>. But she insisted she’d be all right. She said she knew what she was getting into, that I’d prepared her. Why was she so untrustworthy like that?”</p><p>The bene elohim emanated one thunderclap of disapproval before the giant chains strained against the walls. The foundations of the courtroom shook. Balconies groaned. And when the Judge stopped pulling its chains taut, all emanations and screams fell silent. The foundations of the building settled, and so did the Judge’s gaze upon the Ophan Variel.</p><p>The Judge redirected the trial to the matter of a new prophet dwelling among the humans. This prophet wore beggar’s rags and stood on the corner of Apothecary and Therial, a street corner that Variel recognized, distantly, from the floating city of Plumas itself. Variel felt numb to the memory, but Apothecary wasn’t aptly-named at all. Nobody sold medical goods there. It was where Varie of Wiloma had rented student housing with nine other guildmates, all in the same room. Though Variel’s mind registered the window that overlooked the street crossing as ‘familiar’, they wouldn’t have been able to name their own roommates or assign any emotions to where they’d once lived.</p><p>The prophet ranted on the street corner. He called to the sky, for patrolling guardsmen would drag him away if he addressed anyone in particular. In general the patrols preferred to avoid him; he’d once been a Guard Captain at Avias Palace, they whispered, only…something had driven him away from weaponry, status, purpose. Something had taken his eyes. In their place, he relayed visions: That the Empress’s court had breached their vows to humanity. The Judgement from above was coming. They would have a fortieth sefirot, and humanity had to act before that came to pass, else they’d always meet the heel of the heavens.</p><p>Despair flowed, too, from the angelic hosts of the courtroom. They <i>had</i> breached their vow with the wingless. A mixture of shame and fear crescendoed all around Variel, filled their heart with the same emotions. Variel was meant to be their secret. They had to work harder to keep their ophan to themselves. They feared what the humans might do, should the Empress’s court admit to this street-seer’s prophecies, try to make reparations.</p><p>Variel begged them not to punish Apha or Lavinia. The response was sort of a collective celestial snort. The eshim and bene elohim were free to wander wherever they pleased. They weren’t divine horrors like a chayot or an ophan. No, those two weren’t a problem. It was Variel. Variel was not human anymore, and could not even pretend to exist among humans harmlessly. They should know this going forward and act accordingly.</p><p>And then Variel remembered what the erel had told them to do: They accepted the anger. They accepted that they had put the Empress’s country in danger. They were sorry…Even if a nagging little thought escaped that they’d never asked to be an ophan in the first place.</p><p>Surprisingly, there was rage and shame over Variel’s fledging, too. That caught the ophan off guard.</p><p>“Why couldn’t Xor say what she meant or admit when she was in too far? Why did she hide her fear and confusion from me? All I ever heard from her was ‘yes’,” the Prince interrupted.</p><p>At a glance from the Judge, the Prince’s chains went taut from somewhere beyond where Variel could see, and he was dragged out of the courtroom openly wondering what he did wrong.</p><p>The Judge, thus freed from the chayot's presence, then ruled: What had happened to Variel should not have happened in the first place, but the jury would consider that the airship Variel had been scheduled to board had, in fact, crashed over the ocean. No survivors. No bodies. It didn't matter how many visions a prophet shared on the street corner. As far as anyone knew, Varie of Wiloma had vanished under the waves with the wreckage. Therefore, regardless of consent or intent or politics, Variel belonged to the Empress, Her court. The young ophan would do well to understand their new life was a gift.</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>“Only five hundred years community service? To House Elohim?” said Florael. “Not bad!”<p>Variel, still deadened by absorbing so many emanations, and their echoes, and permutations could hardly respond. Florael’s visit was an echo on their mind. Variel could barely comprehend one year of community service, let alone a human lifetime’s worth, let alone one hundred years, let alone five hundred. Also, Florael wasn’t able to disguise her contempt for House Elohim. It emanated under her words. </p><p>Variel, finally alone, rubbed the wheel about their neck. Bit by bit, their senses returned to them, starting with the feel of brass and cabochon under their fingertips. An ache built in Variel's skull. They knelt in their bedding next to the podium that marked the birth and death of Varie of Wiloma, a wingless human with whom they no longer shared a fate. They wanted to cry out, but could not. Their head throbbed. Their eyes felt fit to burst from their head, there was such a backup of tears.</p><p>Perhaps Florael meant well. She and the erel on guard outside of Variel’s room expressed relief over Variel’s sentencing. Both angels feared that the Grigori would add an ophan to their library. The jury rallied and so did the audience in sympathy. Through it all, Variel's lack of emotional response had been judged as a test of compliance, one easily passed. Once safe in their room in House Ophanim, Variel was free to mourn as loudly as they were able, sans voice or breath. Tears finally spilled out. Variel's throat could not budge from the tightness of the wheel. They thought about the fate that had been chosen for them, the one that caused them not to board that airship on that fateful day, five years prior, that led to their own grief being choked off.</p><p>They'd have been fine, even slept in their nest quietly after a good cry, if it had not been for the gift perched atop their funerary podium. Perhaps Lukael meant well, too. It still hurt to see Varie of Wiloma's chest of belongings in person, the very one they'd left on the airship docks so long ago.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0030"><h2>30. The Quiet Aftermath</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The sefirot send Variel to 'school'. The Magister is not impressed with anything that happens in this chapter, and pens a rebuttal. That's just what eshim do.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Of all the great angelic houses of the Empress, House Ophanim existed the closest to the stars. Its foundations were the gradient between atmosphere and etheric void. Below, clouds rolled, and above, the moon spun. Somewhere beyond the deepest reaches of outer space, looking down on all they had created, the sefirot emanated assurance that, with the conclusion of the great trial, disaster had been averted.</p><p>Celestial eyes narrowed upon the only occupied room in House Ophanim, and simulated humans appeared in Variel’s room. The simulations dragged Variel from their nest. Variel struggled, at first, then fell limp into their arms. The ophan was groomed and dressed for the day. Had the sefirot more recent memories of being human, they might have felt a twinge of alarm at the way Variel simply…stopped…emanating.  The silence registered as odd, though, so the sefirah indicated that after Variel checked in <br/>with House Bene Elohim for a scheduled appointment, perhaps one of Variel’s suitors might be permitted to visit and entertain.</p><p>Of course it wouldn’t be Prince Illumis II, unless Variel wanted that? No, of course not. He was sort of an inevitable option anyway for completing the next sefirah anyway, being the only chayot. Neither Variel nor the Prince needed to engage with each other. This made sense to an extra-dimensional entity composed of twelve magical beings. Variel did not indicate the same amount of understanding in return.</p><p>As for Lukael, that was up to Variel. The sefirot did not precisely trust the eshim. It was the house constructed in opposition, in balance to astral will. However, if Variel had any interest in summoning an esh to their chambers, that would be obliged.</p><p>That made Variel radiate shame and fear, for the only esh they knew was the Magister. They were feeling so small, and hurt, and outside of themself, that they couldn’t bear to imagine his emotionless gaze. The sefirah kindly suggested, then, that no eshim should visit, and perhaps an eloah might do instead? There was a very good candidate who, outside of an ophan and a chayot, had most of his sefirah together. Someone new. Someone vetted. Someone nice.</p><p>Variel allowed the sefirah to make plans for them. They were dressed in a pale blue silk with a mirrored brooch fashioned by GOTZON. Just as suddenly as they appeared, the sefirah and all of the simulated humans vanished. Variel knew that they existed alone in House Ophanim, but for the two erelim on guard outside their doorway. The sense of emptiness brought strange comfort. Feeling like they were somewhere above yanking strings to make their own body move, Variel slid to their feet.</p><p>Like the grigori, the erelim bore no names, but they each emanated differently, and even when Variel couldn’t see them through the door, they could tell the two sets of armor apart by feel. Variel clutched the brooch. The previous day hurt, distantly, but Variel’s head had cleared. At least they felt somewhat tethered to their own body. They had the strings in their hands.</p><p>The erelim accompanied Variel down the hallway to a cylindrical room. Its floor was stone and its walls were glass. This, the astral elevator, had been constructed in the dead of Variel’s sleep, for it had been that long since any ophanim walked the house and had need of physically descending. Perhaps Variel had sensed its construction in their dreams, along with a small earthquake. </p><p>Variel shook their head. No, no they hadn’t. Up until the sefirot poked Variel awake, they’d slept like the dead. Come to think of it, Variel didn’t feel particularly alert, either. Awake, sure. But not alive.</p><p>Lukael’s erel visibly sagged with a screech of armor plates sliding against each other, while Illumis’s erel fluffed its wings, as if to fight. The former’s feathers had ink-dipped tips, while the latter’s feathers bore the Prince’s sheen. Each bloodstain on the wings of the erelim emanated a different battle. Several of those battles had been with each other. Lukael’s erel crossed the other’s chest with its spear, kind of a friendly thump. No fighting, today.</p><p>Illumis’s erel tilted its empty helmet. An ophan was very interesting to many of the winged, and courtship could be…a bit terrifying, by human standards. The erelim would therefore accompany Variel. They emanated pleasure at being able to assist.</p><p>Standing within the astral elevator, Variel emanated gratefulness, but could not help the reluctance to take them up on their offer. Variel perhaps overstated the idea. Both erelim lowered their wings and emanated displeasure at being feared. They insisted that Variel be more familiar with them. They retracted their emanations when they realized that Variel was cowering against the wall as far away from them as possible. In what was sort of an angelic eye-roll, they indicated that no one intended to <i>hurt</i> Variel, so long as the ophan had learned not to leave the Empress’s country. Even their clumsy Prince meant the ophan no harm.</p><p>Variel understood. Or rather, they emanated understanding, as best as they could manage.</p><p>The erelim emanated, together, that this was Variel’s <i>home</i>. Forever.</p><p>Yes, Variel understood. Their attempt at swallowing was caught by the collar around their neck.</p><p>The astral elevator’s descent allowed Variel plenty of time to look out over the planet and its array of oceans, landmasses, and roiling clouds. Though its surface was alight from some unseen sun, Variel could still see every star in outer space beyond. The arrangement of the planet’s surface was completely different from that of the human world, and wriggled into new shapes whenever Variel wasn’t looking. They sat with their hands and face pressed to the glass. The erelim put up with Variel taking up as little space as possible and trying not to touch them, try as Variel did to emanate interest in the world below, rather than fear of their escorts.</p><p>About halfway down between earth and sky, the elevator slowed into a cloudbank. A mountaintop cloaked in silver loomed within. Variel could see their own self perched within the reflection of the elevator. Variel wondered if this was House Elohim, but it felt instead like their memory of Lavinia. Variel rose to their feet and flattened out their robe.</p><p>House Bene Elohim, then, opened its silvery doors to the ophan, and assembled a flock of its members to greet them. The bene elohim emanated novelty and agreement at the mirror brooch around Variel’s neck. It had been constructed as a symbol of friendship.</p><p>The erelim emanated that it was a lucky thing for Variel to have helped a member of House Bene Elohim. The bene elohim were normally more capricious than this towards other Houses, given to taunting, teasing, and riddles. Today, for Variel, the bene elohim united in their desire to help the ophan meet the challenge set by the grigori. They assembled in honor of Lavinia.</p><p>*~*~*</p><p>“This seems to be where you left off,” said the copy of Variel. Shape for shape, the bene eloah, Jequn, had rendered herself into an ophan. Unlike Variel, Jequn sported wings covered with silver feathers. Also unlike the real thing, the shapeshifted bene eloah could speak and breathe. Their wheel didn’t constrict them at all. Variel touched their own wheel.</p><p>Variel was also distracted by the coldness of the floor on their bare feet. Constructed of a pane of glass over silver, it reflected the sky above and the silver half-masks that all the other bene elohim wore. The other winged lounged around on stepped seating of marble. The erelim accompanying Variel had been granted seats as well, and propped against each other like furniture. Only the occasional breeze stirred the feathers in their wings.</p><p>Jequn expanded her ophanic wheel so that it floated in circles. They emanated a starting point, and then a straight line from that point. There was no physical or visual aspect to it, only an emanation.</p><p>“Let’s see if we can self-affirm a two-dimensional shape today,” said Jequn, using Variel’s mouth to smile. “We’ve three eshim to observe and record, should you affirm your abilities.”</p><p>The eshim sat straight-laced at a table suitable for signing documents. Variel counted more than three of them, each with their black wings neatly posed behind their backs. They couldn’t make out the faces of the eshim, but there were definitely four of them.</p><p>“One is observing out of personal interest,” said Jequn. A small smile met Variel’s subsequent blush and stab of hope-slash-dread that one might possibly be the Magister. Jequn redirected Variel’s attention to the line they’d emanated across the floor. She gestured, and Variel corralled their focus into defining a starting point. This felt nothing like working with Lavinia, but Variel tried to push those feelings aside.</p><p>…Or at least, Variel tried to do that. It was simply not enough like working with Lavinia. Variel emanated against their wheel, but it would not loosen. They struggled until their face turned red. Variel could feel everyone watching them, hear slight murmurs, and footsteps. Solid, heavy ones.</p><p>A shadow drifted across Variel, created by an enormous black wing, slightly outspread, moreso than normal. The Magister breezed past and exited the theater. Variel’s heart exited their own body, or so it seemed that way. Since he never expressed any emotion, Variel’s thoughts leapt to the worst possible conclusion: They were bad at emanating, the Magister was disappointed, perhaps someone should just drop kick Variel into the sun? For better or for worse, it was the most human Variel had felt that day.</p><p>Jequn chuckled. “Oh, he was showing off for you.”</p><p>The rest of the audience tittered. Really? The ophan had a <i>thing</i> for the Magister? That was true? They didn’t even know each other…What would anyone see in that dour esh? In response, Variel didn’t bother to hide the desire to lock themself into their room and never come back.</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>The shards of resin cracked under mortar and pestle. Ground into dust, arranged in a sacred symbol, and suffumigated properly, the amber turned into clouds that would carry a stern message to the sefirot, no matter how far away they were. Said message was written neatly on vellum, using all of the correct terminologies, every ’t’ crossed with an authoritative slash of the feather quill. Whether anger fueled the demand, or sorrow, or lust, no one would know. The esh’s emotions ended deep within himself, nowhere near the page.<p>Halfmoon glasses caught the reflection of the burning missive, and hunched-over wings cast brooding shadows against the wall. House Eshim, house of secrets. House Eshim, divinely constructed to check the will of the sefirot.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Hello! Good to see my readers again. Thank you for your patience as my schedule continues to be a bit crammed. In the meantime, were we all aware of a Wingfic exchange happening May 21st? I intend to enter this one so if you like writing wingfic and want a chance at a short piece I make in return, here you go: https://wingficex.dreamwidth.org/4784.html</p><p>Otherwise comments are always welcome. Have a lovely day.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0031"><h2>31. Dressed for Success, and Still Failing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>A failed courtship attempt, and Rosemay's suspicious arise about what's really going on in her blessed afterlife.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Rosemay’s mentor met her in the great green hallway of House Eloah. She had hardly flared her wings in greeting before he requested her help dressing for the day. Rosemay expressed surprise, then softened it to curiosity. She knew what a burden negative emanations could be, although from time to time she still expressed them. In private, Rosemay would often wish for the same restraint of the elder angels, to be in more control of her emanations. She hoped she’d improved, over the years, at communicating like a higher being should, but her mentor never mentioned it either way.</p><p>He was Parhelion, Master of the Mock Sun, and he wanted to emphasize his excellence as an eloah. Since the ophan Variel likely faced many suitors, Parhelion wanted to assure Variel of his stability as a sefirah, and good reputation within the Empress’s country. Rosemay took Parhelion’s directions. First, she would disassemble his erel. The first time Rosemay saw an erel fall apart, and its wings vanish, she’d thought it had perished. Parhelion’s erel clattered to the floor in pieces at Rosemay’s whim. She pulled the erel’s chainmail out of the pile and shook it out until she understood which hole was the head, and which holes were for the arms. An erel disassembling was simply funny to Rosemay now, having seen it happen many times.</p><p>Parhelion held his arms out, and Rosemay approached with the chainmail held between her fingers. She quelled her nervousness at touching her mentor, for he’d never asked for assistance dressing before. She laid the chainmail tunic over his chest and fastened the openings around his shoulders. Rosemay took great care not to touch Parhelion’s ice-bright wings. Next, she fastened his erel’s plate armor over his chest, shoulders, wrists, knees, and feet. With one final snap securing the last of the armor, the erel’s wings stretched out beneath Parhelion’s, bloodstains fading into the same feathers made of the sunlight that strikes off of snow.</p><p>Next, Rosemay ducked into Parhelion’s personal summoning chamber, and channeled the hashmallim, requesting Parhelion’s seraph. The serpent arrived in a blast of smoke. Rosemay knelt and picked the seraph up in her hands. It wound its warm body around her wrists. Like the others within Parhelion’s sefirah, it had taken an elegant, portable form. The hashmal that remained entangled in the seraph’s feathers pricked Rosemay with static. It wasn’t on purpose, but she still jumped, and had to smooth her feathers down before approaching Parhelion in person. She peeled the hashmal off the seraph in order to drape the latter angel about Parhelion’s shoulders. The seraph became Parhelion’s flaming cape. The hashmal, Rosemay tucked into a locket. It was part of his sefirah, too. She reached around her mentor’s neck to fasten it, and enjoyed the scent of his breath.</p><p>Parhelion brushed Rosemay away and approached the mirror. He indicated that his sefirah had been, thus far, correctly assembled on his person, and his reflection emanated agreement. The bene eloah within handed Parhelion their mask, which he wore to imbue himself with their essence and their confidence. </p><p>Parhelion’s malakh appeared behind Rosemay precisely on time, which was the only time the malakhim could manage, since they existed in a state where they felt all of time, all at once. Something like that. Rosemay tried not to think about it. Parhelion’s malakh was just as simple and tasteful as the other members of his sefirah; it favored icy crystals and a continuous bolt of light in its center, and it sang bell-like songs. Rosemay guided it to perch upon Parhelion’s forehead and form a halo. The malakh showered the rest of the sefirah with music.</p><p>She was grateful to tend to the family cherub, next. The mandrill-like angel allowed Rosemay to fasten a lovely collar about its neck, and place the lead in Parhelion’s open palm. The cherub’s tail of feather-eyes graced the floor like his own cape, although it seemed silly in comparison to the seraph wings that trailed behind Parhelion. Rosemay sighed a little, proud of her mentor.</p><p>No one generally knew when an esh arrived, since they lacked so much presence, but, sure enough, when Parhelion left to go courting, his esh was there in his shadow. The esh held Parhelion’s seraph-cape aloft. Rosemay emanated hope. Parhelion meant to come back with an ophan’s wheel. At last Rosemay understood his trepidation, the way he withheld his own nervousness from her. He hadn’t been courting in hundreds of years, and his sefirah had hung around him and only him for all that time. He’d given up on becoming a <i>truly</i> complete sefirah…</p><p>…Until recently.</p><p>Rosemay sucked in her breath and tamped down on the emanation of what the ophan was really like. Variel cowered so heavily at the trial, even though it was silly to do so, sillier than a purple tiger. Very human, very small. Confusing. Fearful. Possibly even hateful. But maybe that was only while being judged by a grigg?</p><p>Speaking of, Rosemay fetched Parhelion’s grigg: An alabaster sword containing knowledge of joints and veins, anywhere on a living thing that could be struck for a clean kill. This Parhelion fastened about his shoulder. And he was, honestly, the most complete sefirah in the Empress’s court, outside of actually-complete ones.</p><p>Rosemay watched the eye-filled tail of Parhelion’s cherub slide out of sight. The flickering light of his cape vanished down the great green hallway, with him, as he walked. She pressed her own knuckles into her cheeks and wanted to scream with excitement. Maybe the ophan was feeling better. Parhelion’s sefirah made sense as a home for Variel, in Rosemay’s opinion. Stable, steady, strong. Only a fool of an ophan would reject that vision of beauty! </p><p>Distantly, Parhelion agreed. He thanked Rosemay for her part in Variel’s trial, guiding the jury to assign Variel service in House Elohim.</p><p>Rosemay’s heart danced.</p><div class="center">
  <p>*~*~*</p>
</div>Parhelion returned to House Elohim, incandescent.<p>Rosemay was only aware of his presence by the tip of her tail poking out from the eshweave blind. Lately she’d become bolder, because what was the fun of being a tiger if her fur couldn’t drink up the sun? So she’d been poking a digit or two out, a toe here, a whisker there. The blinds tumbled off her now-humanish form. She shakily gathered them up and realized, at the rate Parhelion barreled through House Elohim, she’d never get the blinds back to his room in time, not without him seeing.</p><p>Awkwardly, Rosemay leaned the blind against her tree. She imprinted an emanated message of ‘privacy please’ with the hashmallim to hopefully ward off someone from stumbling upon Parhelion’s eshweave blind her absence. Rosemay picked up her skirts, pressed her wings to her back, and ran indoors.</p><p>Parhelion barely registered her existence as he stormed past. Rosemay followed him down the Ice Gallery, across the Dreaming Dais, and into the Arboreal Walkway. The places in House Elohim did not precisely line up with each other geographically; they rather represented an eloah’s state of mind as they happened to pass through. Rosemay chattered through an oddly moist Ice Gallery. The Dreaming Dais was occupied by visions of fire and screaming animals in the embroidered curtains. The Arboreal Walkway wound, and wound, and wound, through trees with increasingly tangled branches, as it often did during times of great frustration. Parhelion wished to retire to his room.</p><p>Rosemay emanated concerned curiosity.</p><p>Parhelion paused in response to her emanation. His malakh chimed overhead. It floated askew. Rosemay caught its memory. A wingbeat had sliced the air near it. It still hadn’t regained its balance. The emanations drifted from rips in the seraph’s wings. Lacerations decorated Parhelion’s erel armor. Bit by bit, Rosemay caught fragments of a battle. She struggled to understand how an ophan could be so violent.</p><p>The ophan? Not violent, Parhelion grudgingly revealed. <i>Afraid.</i></p><p>The memory unfolded within Rosemay. Parhelion traversed the interstellar hallways of the ancient, empty House Ophanim. Parhelion sensed Variel’s presence and proceeded towards them. Variel flickered and wove between hallways and rooms. He took the ophan’s manner to be coy. The memory wavered with Parhelion’s mood, and Rosemay didn’t pry, because he’d been courting, and that was between him and Variel. At some point, Variel noticed Parhelion’s sword, and panicked.</p><p>Rosemay was just as startled as Parhelion had been to see two erelim. Not only that, but erelim allied with two distinct sefirot. One wore the sheen of a chayot, which Parhelion expected. However, the other — Lukael’s erel — startled Parhelion so greatly that he drew his sword. Rosemay felt the air slice open in response. Spears were out. Negotiations turned to blows.</p><p>This vision, too, wavered, as Parhelion expressed a desire to be left alone in his quarters. He hadn’t feared the chained chayot’s involvement, but he hadn’t been expecting two sefirot to work together, against him! Rosemay caught flashes of Parhelion’s desire to take on the heavenly wheel as a halo. Then, very deeply, she realized that this was more than simply about Variel. Parhelion emanated a snarl, so sharp and sudden that to Rosemay, it felt like a blast of wind. She watched him limp further into the twisting branches. </p><p>Parhelion had shared so many breakfasts with her. They’d poured each other tea. They’d compared perfumes and clothing. They’d picked things out for each other. Dancing, Parhelion had shown her all the wonders of the Empress’s country. He’d made it so clear that he hoped Rosemay would enjoy her stay, which would last eons, if not forever. And Rosemay had foolishly believed that all these simple pleasures were the true heart of the Empress: A heaven of small treats in quick succession, a harmless adventure for her childlike heart. It had seemed so perfectly crafted to <i>her</i> happiness.</p><p>Rosemay didn’t even know, exactly, how old Parhelion was. All the elohim assumed he had a few centuries on him. Rosemay ran her fingers through her beard. This particular desire of Parhelion’s, to be completed and to ascend, had ached within him for over three thousand years. When she looked at Parhelion, she didn’t know what he saw in return. </p><p>In the moment when Parhelion left her in the Arboreal Walkway, Rosemay couldn’t help but notice how arbitrarily the branches around her wove together. Even the stone steps seemed not-so-solid beneath Rosemay’s feet. She could still feel Parhelion’s parting emanation. The memory of it stopped her from pursuing someone who, until that moment, had seemed infinitely open and welcoming. She took a deep breath. Maybe Parhelion just needed time. She could greet him later. House Elohim would seem real again.</p><p>Rosemay found the family cherub hiding in the breakfast nook. He bared his teeth but allowed her to remain with him under the open window with the gauzy curtain fluttering in. One by one, the cherub pressed his eyelet feathers into place. His tongue lapped at a long wound that extended from his shoulder to his ribcage.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>I feel like I'm crawling out of a grave here, but hi! I'm still alive. The Great Deadlining has passed. My next challenge is to build up writing momentum again.</p><p>To help myself out, I'm promising myself to make the next chapter a bit self-indulgently kinky. If there's any interest in what happened with Parhelion from Varie's perspective, I'm thinking about incorporating some stuff from that scene too. This was sort of like, ah, you know what? Rosemay still feels very fresh to me, as a character, so it's easier to get started from her point of view and give her a little conundrum to work through.</p><p>I notice I have a few new readers so hello, thank you for the bookmarks and subscriptions.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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